Right from the Start
by UndercoverSquint
Summary: Season 1 re-write, tweaking the details and one of the tertiary characters. Because I think that under the right set of circumstances, BB would have fallen for each other right from the start. Peter is a threat to Brennan, and Tessa doesn't exist. More drama than angst. Complete. Part 1 of 3.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I've been a FF reader for a while now, and I just haven't been able to get this idea out of my head. In watching the first season again with my daughter, it occurred to me that until Brennan's mother's body was found, her brother was the only reason she had abandonment issues. She wasn't quite so jaded when it came to relationships yet, and I began to imagine that perhaps, if the circumstances were right, she might not have been so afraid of being more than 'just partners.' So this starts with the Pilot, but with all of the background info we know as of mid-season 11. I won't cover every case, but there is important dialogue and opportunity for character growth in a lot episodes, so I will be borrowing dialogue from the show to fill in the blanks of my own story line.**

 **I have about 33K words of this written so far, and I will finish it for sure. I know exactly where it's going, it's just a matter of writing it. Plus, I hate unfinished fics. All of the chapters are about this length so far, so hopefully that's ok. I like long chapters when I'm reading; hope you do too. Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: Just having fun with HH's creations. I own nothing you recognize from the show.**

Chapter 1

 _Ugh. There's that stupid nickname again._

" _Don't_ call me Bones," she told him in what she hoped was a threatening tone. "And I do more than identify." She turned back to the Homeland Security agent, annoyed at Booth's inexplicable reappearance in her life.

"She also writes books," Booth said as he held up a hardback copy of her novel, _Bred in the Bone._

The HSA agent picked it up and gazed at the cover before saying, "Fine. She's all yours."

Brennan was startled and outraged. The HSA agent didn't look even remotely abashed as he told her with a smug smile that he loved her book. She fumed as she grabbed her belongings and stalked past Booth, doing her best to ignore the words that were coming from his mouth and keep her eyes forward. How could she have ever found this man charming? He was _infuriating_. A presumptive, rude, pushy, obnoxious, arrogant alpha-male. She studiously ignored him as her mental list of negative adjectives grew longer. Not until she was in the passenger seat of his SUV did she speak to him again.

"That's the best you can do?"

"What?"

"Getting Homeland Security to snatch me so that you can stage a fake rescue?"

"Well, at least I picked you up from the airport, huh?" She glanced at him, seeing him smile that irritatingly charming smile of his and looked quickly away again. "Hey, come on. I went through the appropriate channels, but your assistant there, he stonewalled me!"

"Yeah, well after the last case, I told Zack to never, ever put you through. You can let me off anywhere along here." They weren't near her apartment, not even close. But she could call a cab. Couldn't the guy take a hint? She'd been dodging his phone calls and emails for nearly a year, and it still wasn't enough to erase the bad taste in her mouth that the Gemma Arrington case had left her with.

" _Get a soul!"_

" _Get a brain!"_

She shook her head at the memory and adjusted her posture to prop one leg up against the dash, hoping that she looked more relaxed than she felt and that maybe it would irritate him in equal measure.

Booth was certainly just as frustrated, whether she realized it or not. He hated that he'd had to go to such extraordinary measures simply to have a conversation with her, but dammit, what choice had she left him? Sure, they had argued a lot during the Arrington case, but it had the feel of foreplay more than fighting. As they had walked from the terminal to his SUV, he took advantage of her pouty silent treatment to look at her surreptitiously. She was slightly tanned from her trip to Guatemala, wearing a brown jacket, over a white button-down shirt, over a torturously low cut tank top. The large red and silver necklace did nothing to distract the eye from her breasts. If anything, Booth thought, it drew even more attention to them. _How does someone spend weeks digging up dead bodies and still look that...hot?_

Trying to get to the point, he gave her a resolute glance and said, "Alright, listen. A decomposed corpse was found in Arlington National Cemetery, down-"

"Arlington National Cemetery is full of decomposed corpses: it's...a cemetery."

"Yeah, but this one is your type of corpse; it wasn't in a casket."

She'd had enough. "If you drive one more block, I'm screaming 'kidnap' out the window."

"Do you know what, I'm trying to mend bridges here." Was it really asking too much to cut him a little slack? He'd done everything short of stake out her apartment trying to get her to talk to him again.

"Pull over." He did, and she practically bolted from the vehicle. He followed her quickly as she said, "I'm going home."

"Great… Could we…? Look, could we just skip this part?" He knew he should probably apologize again for his behavior the last time they worked together, but it wasn't like he hadn't made dozens of phone calls trying to get the opportunity to do it. She had refused to talk to him voluntarily. So here he was, chasing a beautiful woman down the sidewalk in a manner that didn't feel at all dignified.

"I find you very condescending," she said, still walking rapidly away from him.

"Me?! _I'm_ condescending? I'm not the one who has to mention that she's got a doctorate _every five minutes_."

"I am the one with the doctorate." She was trying to maintain her irate exterior, but she couldn't help the hint of a smile that crossed her face. She was enjoying this. She knew it made no sense to find enjoyment in bickering with someone, but there was just something about him…

"Yeah, well, you know what? I'm the one with the badge and the gun, huh? You know, you're not the only forensic anthropologist in town." This made her laugh, which he found both frustrating and encouraging.

"Yes I am. The next nearest one is in Montreal. Parlez-vous Francais?" She was still striding away from him, a grin on her face that he couldn't see. Booth stopped abruptly.

"What's it going to take?" _Finally_ , she thought. She smirked inwardly and turned to face him.

"Full participation in the case."

"Fine."

"Not just the lab work, _everything_."

"What? Do you want me to spit in my hand? We're Scully and Mulder."

"I don't know what that means."

"It's an olive branch, just get back in the car." She held his gaze for another brief moment, and his breath hitched a little as he looked at her. He'd forgotten how stunning her eyes were. Sometimes he didn't know if they were silver or blue, and he thought that perhaps they changed colors. As they walked back to his SUV, he found himself wondering what kinds of things would make her eyes change. He drove them to Arlington in distracted silence.

Brennan's focus fared no better. She peaked at him through quick sideways glances as often as she thought she could get away with. There were times that she appreciated her understanding of human physiology more than others. This was one of them. She allowed herself to catalogue his features, the musculature of his torso that his clean, black suit did little to hide from her. Perhaps if she were an ordinary person, she wouldn't be able to see it. As it was though, the roll of his muscles from his acromia to his antebrachia made her mouth suddenly dry. She looked quickly out the window, determined to get a hold on her wayward thoughts. Still, as they pulled to a stop and exited the vehicle at Arlington, she found her eyes moving over his body again. She just hoped he hadn't noticed.

As they walked down a hill toward the pond, Brennan noticed that the Jeffersonian's truck was already there. She wondered uneasily how Booth had managed _that_. He told her the context of the find while Zack appeared from behind the door to mobile lab RV.

"Hi Zack."

"This eco-warrior look works for you," he told her with a boyish grin.

"Thanks."

"Very action-oriented…" If Zack thought he was being subtle, he had a lot to learn. Booth watched their interaction with veiled interest, shaking his head at the kid's poor attempt at flirtation.

"Agent Booth, you remember my assistant, Zack Addy?"

"Oh yeah…" Booth rolled his eyes as Zack continued speaking to Brennan.

"How was Guatemala? Dig up lots of massacred victims? Learn a thing or two about machete strikes?"

Booth was mildly pleased that she seemed to have no idea the kid was flirting with her. Either that, or she was merely refusing to accept the premise of his interaction. He smirked a bit as Brennan continued speaking, wondering how anyone could be that oblivious.

"Zack, I need water samples and temperature readings from the pond."

"Right away, Dr. Brennan."

Booth grunted in irritation as Zack walked away. "He's got no sense of discretion, that kid. Typical squint."

"I don't know what that means."

"When cops get stuck, we bring in people like you. You know? Squints. You know, you _squint_ at things."

"Oh, you mean people with very high IQs and basic reasoning skills?"

"Yeah," he replied, looking appropriately chastised. She continued toward the small boat waiting for them, and he followed. As they stood in the boat, looking at the screen which showed the bottom of the pond, he leaned slightly over her shoulder from behind.

"What exactly am I supposed to be _squinting_ at?"

"Oh, you know. It's like pornography. You'll know it when you see it," he answered in a smooth, lowered voice. His breath danced against the back of her neck, and she repressed a shiver. She glanced back at him carefully, then quickly looked back at the screen. Had he been looking down her shirt? She couldn't be sure, but it certainly felt that way. She turned her full attention back to the screen as she saw the outlines of a skeleton become clear on the murky bottom of the pond.

"Yeah, ok. This is a crime scene."

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Brennan stretched her back with a slight wince as she sat on the platform, reassembling the skull of the pond victim. Before leaving the scene, she had been able to give Booth age, build, sex, and a few other details. But the ID would hinge on a facial reconstruction, and that meant reassembling the pulverized bones of the young woman's skull. It wasn't the most difficult reconstruction she'd ever done, but it was tedious work. She hadn't slept as well on the plane as she'd hoped, and she realized that night had fallen for the second time since Booth had conned her into working this case with him.

As she glued the last fragment into place, she couldn't keep her eyes open for another minute. The next thing she became aware of was the smell of fresh coffee nearby. The sun had risen and someone had placed a steaming mug on the exam table. She drank it gratefully and gave the skull to Angela for identification before finally heading home.

She had showered in the lab's decontamination shower but hadn't had any clean clothes at the lab to change into. Upon arriving home however, she couldn't summon the energy to do more than shrug out of her shirt and jacket before collapsing onto her bed in exhaustion.

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Booth sat in his boss's office, ready for a fight. He fidgeted a bit as he explained to Deputy Director Cullen that he had enlisted the help of Dr. Temperance Brennan in the case of the body found at Arlington.

"So, you guaranteed a squint a field role in an active murder investigation," Cullen said with no small degree of skepticism.

"Yes, sir."

"The one that wrote that book."

"Yes, sir."

"Thought you said she wouldn't work with you anymore," Cullen said, holding back a smirk. In fact, Dr. Brennan had declared she wouldn't be working with _anyone_ at the FBI anymore, following several unsatisfactory attempts to pair her with other agents.

"Well, the last case we worked, she provided a description of the murder weapon and the murderer, but I didn't give it much credence."

"Why not?"

"Because she did it by looking at the victim's autopsy x-rays."

Cullen snorted and replied, "Well I wouldn't give it much credence either."

"Turns out she was right on both, plus the pond victim… Brennan gives me the victim's age, sex, and favorite sport."

"Which is?"

"Tennis," Booth answered with a small grin. The impressed look on Cullen's face told him that he would be able to get what he wanted, and Booth relaxed a bit.

"She's good."

"Oh, she's amazing. If the only way I can get her back to my side is to bring her out in the field, I'm willing."

Cullen narrowed his eyes a bit in confusion. "Well, squints like to stay safe, back at the lab. What's with Brennan?"

Booth hesitated a moment before answering, "Remember a case back in the early 90s, a couple goes missing on the interstate, car was found at a rest stop?"

"Yeah, Chicago area, upstanding citizens, nobody found anything…"

"Those are Brennan's parents," Booth told him. He hoped that Cullen would see what he had seen in Brennan. That her parents' disappearance had given her a personal reason to seek justice, a goal that was shared by any decent cop, himself included.

Cullen mulled this over briefly, then said, "Fine. She's on you. Take a squint out in the field, she's your responsibility."

"Thank you, sir." Booth sighed in relief as he left Cullen's office. He hadn't been entirely sure his boss would approve of him taking a civilian into the field on a murder investigation, particularly after she had broken the nose of a particular homicidal judge when they had worked together before. He hadn't wanted to consider the uncomfortable conversation he would've had with Brennan if his boss had denied his request. Vouching for her skills as well as her safety seemed like nothing at all if it meant that she would help him. He strolled back to his office, flipping his Gambler's Anonymous sobriety chip over and over in his pocket. Now he just had to give her the good news and wait for the ID.

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Brennan's eyes opened slowly, and she took a brief moment to take in that it was still daylight and she had fallen asleep in her shoes. She couldn't have been out for more than a couple of hours. A sound reached her ears from somewhere in the apartment. Like a door closing or footsteps. Immediately, she was up and reaching for the metal baseball bat she kept next to the bed. Had she been more awake, she would've reached into the nightstand for her gun, but her lingering exhaustion made her doubt her aim. She crept silently through her apartment toward the source of the noise, chest heaving as adrenaline coursed through her system. She realized with a chill that there was an intruder in her apartment and raised the bat cautiously.

She barely registered that the next sound came from behind her before turned and swung the bat in that direction. The bat whistled through the air, hitting nothing, then lowered to her side as she recognized the face of her ex-boyfriend. She was relieved for a moment, before remembering that their breakup had been less than amicable. She didn't let go of the bat.

"What the hell are you doing here, Peter?"

"I heard you were back," he replied defensively, as if it were perfectly normal to break into your ex-girlfriend's apartment and sneak in while she's sleeping.

"I changed the locks for a reason. You need to leave. Now."

"Oh, come on, Tempe, you don't need to be like that. I said I was sorry for what happened, I wanted a chance to make it up to you, but you just disappeared to some third world country as usual."

"Take the hint," she replied, wary of him as he edged slowly closer to her.

"While you were gone, I thought a lot about why we broke up."

"You hit me, Peter. You knocked me unconscious, and that's the only reason you're not recovering from surgical repairs to your genitals right now. GET OUT."

Peter winced a bit at the image her words presented, but stepped even closer to her regardless. "You don't mean that. I never meant to hurt you like that; I just lost my temper for a split second. And then I couldn't take it back." He did look very apologetic, but Brennan was having none of it.

"And what was your reasoning for threatening me and following me after we broke up then?"

He sighed and looked even more chagrined. "I'm sorry, okay? I just missed you. I missed you then, and I missed you while you were gone. We were really good together, Tempe. I know you haven't forgotten…" Peter was standing right in front of her by now and had the stupidity to reach out and touch her hip.

She pushed him away forcefully and shouted, "Get OUT!"

Later, she would ask herself why she didn't simply raise the bat right then and hit him where it would do the most damage. Why did she use her free arm to push him away from her instead? She would blame it on her fatigue and berate herself for her lack of foresight.

Peter reacted immediately, giving her no time to re-balance herself for defense. He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her backward into the wall, her head making a rather sickening sound as it made contact first. She was dazed for a moment as tiny lights danced in her vision, and he had his body pressed against hers, pinning her. Brennan's head cleared as he was pushing her lips apart with his own, and she tasted blood.

With a jolt, she felt the handle of the bat still in her hand and her instincts shifted her into action. She used her leg to knock him off balance and swung the bat hard into his abdomen before he could recover. She raised it again threateningly, but Peter didn't move from his place on the carpet. He gripped his stomach and moaned in pain.

"I'm not going to say this again. _Get out. Now._ "

He got up carefully, still holding his hand to the place where the bat had impacted. As he walked toward the door she followed him, bat at the ready.

"You know, Tempe, I don't know why I ever bothered with you. You're a cold-hearted bitch who wouldn't know how to handle a real relationship if you tried."

She gripped the bat harder but said nothing, not wanting to give him the satisfaction that his insults had found their mark. As he opened the door, still muttering, he nearly walked into Booth, who had a fist raised as if preparing to knock.

Booth was startled and opened his mouth to apologize to them, assuming uncomfortably that he had interrupted something intimate. But he quickly took in Peter's wounded posture and the bat clutched in Brennan's hand, and his hackles rose instinctively.

"What's going on?" Booth growled.

"Ah, you must be the next notch in the bedpost, huh? _Fucking whore…_ "

Before Peter could move forward another inch, Booth's hands were pulling him fully into the hallway and slamming him hard against the opposite wall. Booth held him in place with little effort and addressed Brennan without looking at her.

"Did he hurt you?"

"No, I'm okay. Let him go Booth, he was leaving."

But Booth wasn't about to let Peter just walk away. He pushed his face closer to him and forced Peter to look in his eyes. With one hand, he showed Peter his badge, and Peter swallowed thickly.

Booth's tone was deadly as he said, "Listen up, asshole. I don't know who the hell you think you are, talking to a woman like that, but if you know what's best for you, it'll be the last time you come around here. Do I make myself clear? Because if _anyone_ sees you here again, I will shoot you, you got it?"

Peter nodded a tiny bit and grunted in pain as Booth pulled him away from the wall and gave him a good shove down the hallway. He and Brennan watched in silence until Peter disappeared onto the elevator, and then Booth turned to Brennan with concern.

"Jesus, Bones, who the hell was that?"

"Don't call me Bones," she replied automatically. Booth shot her a look, and she continued. "He's my ex. Our breakup was less than mutually satisfactory." She scowled as finally put the bat down and walked back into her living room. He followed her, still amped up and curious at exactly what had happened before he arrived.

"Less than mutually satisfactory? Is that code for something?"

Brennan looks confused, but says, "I had handled him, you really didn't need to make empty threats to scare him."

"Who says they're empty?" Booth muttered darkly. "You're sure you're ok?"

"Yes, I'm fine." Brennan's response sounded like one she was accustomed to giving, and Booth scowled a bit more in concern. Brennan knew that his actions had been unnecessary, but she found herself feeling grateful for his interference in spite of herself. She was perfectly capable of fighting her own battles, but the memory of Peter cowering away from Booth made her feel oddly satisfied. She wanted to change the subject though and decided to offer him some coffee, supposing it was the least she could do. As she turned her head to look him, however, a sharp pain coursed through her head, and she winced. Simultaneous waves of dizziness and nausea swept over her, and her body stiffened in response.

Booth missed her expression; his eyes instead darting around her apartment for signs of foul play. Nothing seemed obviously out of place, but his gut told him there was more to the story than she was sharing.

"Was there a reason you stopped by? And how did you get my address anyway?"

"FBI, Bones. I thought you might like a ride to the lab and some coffee on the way. I got a call that they're ready with the facial reconstruction."

"Ok," she agreed, surprised by the gesture but finding no reason to refuse. "Give me a minute to change."

" _Thank God,"_ he said under his breath. Her camisole was snug and cut low across the tops of her breasts. He thought that if she leaned over far enough, she might spill right out of it. It was all he could do to maintain eye contact as he told her in a louder voice to take her time. He watched her walk away appreciatively, noting that if she had changed at all in the past year, she had only become more attractive. Booth chastised himself silently for what were clearly very _un_ professional thoughts about his colleague.

He distracted himself by looking curiously around her apartment, taking in the impressive number of books on her shelves, an extensive CD collection, and a vast number of artifacts that were undoubtedly rare and valuable. It was meticulously organized: everything had its designated place, and the surfaces were uncluttered and clean. A handful of framed photographs showed mostly shots that must have been taken at various digs in various locations. The terrains in the backgrounds ranged from jungle to desert and everywhere in between. Only one photograph stood out from the rest of the collection: a picture of Brennan with Angela, whom he remembered was the forensic artist at the Jeffersonian. Booth smiled a little and turned away from the pictures.

Brennan came back down the hall in fresh clothing which covered her assets fairly well. Booth felt relieved and disappointed in equal measure. She grabbed her bag and asked if he was ready to leave. He answered in affirmative, and as he followed her to the front door, his eyes were caught on the baseball bat, still propped near the door where she had left it. He wanted to ask more questions, but kept silent for the time being.

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They stopped for coffee and rode in comfortable silence for a few minutes. It was freshly in the back of Booth's mind that he had promised his boss to be responsible for her safety, and he told himself that must be the reason for his continued concern. He could tell something was off about the whole exchange, the phrasing she had used, even her posture.

"So this guy Peter…" he began hesitantly.

"Booth, let it go. It's over." Her tone was short, but her expression didn't conceal the emotional response to her ex's name.

"Look, I'm sorry if you think I overstepped some boundary, but I just… I really hate guys like that, you know?"

"Guys like what?"

"Guys who don't understand how they're supposed to treat a woman; guys who think they can treat women like shit."

"Oh," she replied softly. She felt a bit guilty that she'd been rude to him when he'd gone so far as to stand up to a bully on her behalf and show concern for her well-being. He seemed to expect nothing in return, but she felt compelled to give him something anyway. "Thank you," she said awkwardly. "I'm sorry I didn't say it before. I should have. It was nice of you to stand up for me, even if it wasn't strictly necessary."

"You're welcome." He smiled at her warmly and pressed his luck, "So what's the story there anyway? It looked like things got pretty heated before I showed up."

She chewed her bottom lip self-consciously and replied in a somewhat detached manner, "We dated for about six months. He has a temper and a bit of a drinking problem, and he hit me during an argument once. If he hadn't knocked me unconscious, I would've returned the blow of course, but instead I woke up alone. Obviously I broke things off with him immediately, but he followed me between home and work for a while and made a few idle threats. He only got close to me once more, and I defended myself sufficiently. When I got the request to supervise genocide victim recovery in Guatemala for a few months, I figured it would be a good opportunity to put some more significant distance between us. I changed my locks before I left, but I suppose he must've picked them…"

She had kept her eyes forward and her tone neutral as she spoke, so it was a surprise when she finally did glance at Booth to see that he was clearly furious. His hands gripped the steering wheel, his jaw clenched convulsively, and his face was flushed darkly with his anger. Brennan was startled at the response.

"Are you serious? Why the hell did you stop me from beating the shit out of that asshole?" His voice came out just a bit louder than he'd intended, and he worked to calm himself a bit.

"Because I'd handled it, and he was leaving," she said defensively. "I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Booth." She felt a bit irritated at his assumption that she needed him to fight her battles for her, and she was more than a little confused at his reaction to the information she'd given him. _Why on earth would he care what Peter did or didn't do? It didn't involve him…_

"Bones-"

"Don't call me Bones," she sniped back. He gritted his teeth but said nothing more. He was disturbed by the clinical way she had described being abused, stalked, and threatened by her ex. She was a genius. How did she come off telling a story like that as if it were a perfectly normal thing to have happened to her? _The guy had hit her so hard he'd knocked her out_ , Booth thought as his fury mounted again. _Yet she acts like I'm the one in the wrong for wanting to pummel the jerk._

They spent the rest of the car ride in a tense silence, and Brennan eventually closed her eyes against the harsh sunlight that amplified the pain in her head. She had hoped that with their compromise about her participation in the case, things would be more cordial between them.

 _Apparently not._

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Once they had all filed into Angela's office, she loaded up the image of the facial reconstruction. After his initial reaction to the magic that was the Angelator, Booth watched silently, gazing at the reassembled skull nearby. _She had to have spent hours putting it back together,_ he thought, wondering just how much sleep she'd had since getting off the plane. He glanced at her solicitously, taking in her drawn expression and fatigued posture. _Did she even take time to feed herself?_ He felt suddenly guilty that he must have made her feel pressured to work nonstop. That hadn't been his intention. He remembered her vehement insistence that she could take care of herself just fine and pursed his lips in disapproval. She didn't take care of herself nearly as well as she thought she did. _Obviously she neglects herself in favor of her work,_ Booth thought. _Someone really should be keeping an eye on that._ But as he looked around at the other faces in the room, it seemed that he was the only one to notice Brennan's appearance. His gaze shifted back to her, and his brow furrowed as he watched her touch the back of her head lightly. Her expression was pained, and he knew instantly that there was more to her earlier encounter with Peter than she had let on.

Before he can think anything else about it, however, Brennan drew his attention back to the holographic image of a woman's face.

"Does she look familiar to anyone?"

"No…" Booth answered.

"Split the difference: mixed race," she told Angela.

"Lenny Kravitz or Vanessa Williams?"

"I don't know what that means." But Angela shrugged her shoulders a bit and made the change. As the image shifted, Booth felt a chill wash over him.

"Does anyone recognize her?" Brennan asked again.

"Wait…" said Angela. "Is that who I think it is?"

"The girl who had the affair with the senator?" Zack asked cautiously.

"Her name is Cleo Louise Eller," Booth answered soberly. "Only daughter to Ted and Sharon Eller. Last seen approximately 9 pm, April 6, 2003, leaving the Cardio Deluxe Gym on K Street, she didn't even make it to her car."

"Pretty good memory," Brennan said carefully, knowing there was more to it than that.

"Yeah, well, it's my job to find her."

"Well in that case, congratulations on your success," said Hodgins somewhat darkly.

"This isn't exactly the way I wanted it to end." As they walked out of Angela's office, he realized belatedly that Brennan had recognized Cleo even before Angela had finished with her computer magic. _She's good,_ he thought with satisfaction. And he knew with certainty at that moment that he'd been right to put himself on the line with Cullen and take another chance on her.

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Booth walked quickly across the Jeffersonian lawn, Brennan following in his wake.

"So what do you do first, confront the senator?"

"Listen, Bones, I know-"

"Don't call me Bones!"

"I know we talked about you coming out in the field and all…"

"Ugh, you rat _bastard_."

He stopped and turned to face her before continuing. "A case this big, the Director is going to create a special investigation, and if I line all my ducks up in a row, I could maybe, _maybe_ head it up."

"I don't know what that means, but I think I could be a duck."

"You're not a duck, ok! On this one, we stick to the book. Cops in the street, squints in the lab."

Brennan drew herself up in determination and said, "Well, in that case, the Jeffersonian will be issuing a press release identifying the girl in the pond." Booth looked startled.

"You do that, I'm a dead duck. What are you trying to do?"

"Blackmail you," she said simply.

"Blackmail a federal agent?"

"Yes."

"I don't like it."

"I'm fairly certain you're not supposed to," she replied. Booth considered her for a moment and tried to think through the ramifications. He knew she would be helpful, but damn if the woman's sheer nerve didn't make him want to kiss her senseless right then and there. He sighed in defeat.

"Fine. You're in."

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Booth and Brennan sat together in Cullen's office this time, briefing him on the case thus far. Brennan primarily observed as Booth presented the information, telling his boss that he wanted to look into the victim's former stalker first. As he said this, Booth permitted a glance in her direction, both of them silently making the connection between Peter's behavior and that of Oliver Laurier. But Brennan kept silent as the discussion continued.

"What's your first move?"

"I'd like to inform the Ellers that we found their daughter," Booth replied firmly. Brennan looked at him in surprise as Cullen spoke up to disagree.

"It's better to keep this quiet. It's been, what, two years? What's another few days?"

"With all due respect, sir, I've come to know the family pretty well, especially the Major. And two years is a hell of a long time in my book." _More than long enough,_ he added silently.

Brennan spoke up to say that she would have details of cause of death by that afternoon, and Booth looked over at her with approval.

"Then that's where we'll get started."

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Booth kept a close eye on her as he drove them to the Ellers' home. He watched Brennan move her head around slightly, as if experimenting to see what caused her pain and what didn't.

"Got a headache?" he asked with quiet concern.

"I'm fine. Hodgins identified the particulates embedded in Cleo Eller's skull as rolled steel, most likely from a sledge-type hammer. Also there's concrete and diatomaceous earth."

He sighed at her clever topic change, but allowed it. "What's that?"

She handed him a small sample bottle containing a white powder and explained its origin and common practical uses.

"Diatomaceous earth. Common or not, it's a clue," he said with a smile.

This time, she smiled back.

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"Those people deserved the truth," said Brennan firmly. She was irritated at the way he had interrupted her when they were speaking to Major and Mrs. Eller.

"Their daughter was murdered. They deserve the kindness of the lie."

"There'll be an inquest report," she argued stubbornly.

"Which they won't read, because they don't want to. Especially because, toward the end, Cleo and her parents weren't even speaking."

"They told you that?"

"You know, getting information out of live people is a lot different than getting information out of a pile of bones. You have to offer up something of yourself first."

She contemplated that for a moment before asking, "What exactly did you _do_ in the military?"

Booth went on the defensive. "See? See what you did right there, Bones? You asked a personal question without offering anything personal in return, and since I'm not a pile of bones, you get zilch. Sorry."

She narrowed her eyes in thought. Things like this were a prime example of her inability to understand people, she supposed. She'd been told more than once that she was cold and detached, and she wondered if he thought that about her too. Usually, she couldn't care less what people thought. She poured her energy into her work, and when she did allow time for a relationship of any kind, it was motivated primarily by the desire to satisfy biological urges. With the exception of Angela, her interpersonal relationships were short-lived and stilted, and she'd never really been bothered by that fact. But as Booth drove them toward the lab with an unreadable expression on his face, it occurred to her that she didn't want him to see her that way. She couldn't explain to herself why it mattered to her what he thought, and that alone was disconcerting.

She thought back to his words in Cullen's office. She'd been pleasantly surprised that Booth's first priority was to give the victim's family the answers they'd been waiting to hear. His reasoning held great weight with her. It was the very same motivation behind her career choice. She wanted to give other families the closure that she had never gotten after her parents had disappeared.

Brennan sighed and winced at the pain in the back of her head where it had struck the wall hours earlier. She knew she probably had a concussion, but she was fairly certain there was no damage to her skull. She could handle pain. She was still angry with herself that she let him get close enough to hurt her at all, and in a way, she welcomed the ache the way a sinner might welcome penance.

They were silent the rest of the way back to the lab, each distracted by their own thoughts. Booth hadn't meant to make her feel bad, but her tactlessness had made him uncomfortable in front of Cleo's parents. He recognized that she was the type of person who dealt in absolutes; black and white; right and wrong. Especially when it came to honesty. In reality, he found it to be an admirable trait, albeit an inconvenient one when it came to giving someone bad news. He glanced at her now and again as they neared the Jeffersonian. She seemed to be deep in thought about something, and he refrained from disrupting her.

But a pained expression flashed across her features, and his previous annoyance gave way to concern.

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Later that evening, Booth found Brennan alone at her desk, cradling her head gingerly in her hands. Her eyes were closed, and the pain was distracting enough that she didn't hear his footsteps approaching. She felt exhausted and raw. They had identified fetal ear bones among the remains, and she'd had a loaded talk with Angela about her personal relationship shortcomings. Not only had Angela successfully used psychology on her, but she had given her the same advice Booth had suggested earlier in the day-almost verbatim. _Offer up something of yourself._ She sighed in disgust. She really _really_ hated psychology.

"Bones?" She groaned in response, lacking the energy to be irritated at the nickname. She didn't look at him and kept her eyes closed.

"Hey. I've been pretending all day not to notice that you're in pain, and I'm done with that," he told her sternly. "What really happened?"

She sighed in resignation and admitted that her encounter with Peter that morning had left her with a closed head wound and a headache. He made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a growl and moved toward her to get a closer look. She finally looked up at the feel of his hand on her shoulder and leans away from him.

"Just let me look at it. I won't do anything to make the pain worse," he pleaded. He was upset, even she could see that, though she didn't know why.

"I'm fine, Booth. The headache will go away. I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow." But he was not about to settle for another ' _I'm fine._ '

"No. Enough is enough, you need to get it looked at." His tone was firm. "Come on, I'm taking you to the ER. You probably have a concussion."

"I don't need to go to the hospital, I can-"

"Take care of yourself, yes I've heard. But you're going to the ER right now even if I have to drag you every step of the way, so let's move."

She was stunned at his adamance. For one, she couldn't remember the last time anyone had spoken to her like that. It wasn't that his tone was demanding. No, it was more than that. She could hear the underlying concern behind his insistence, the stress in his voice sounding not unlike panic. Brennan stared at him in blank confusion as she tried to understand why he was so upset that she was injured. Booth saw bewilderment and interpreted it accurately.

"Just because you're able to take care of yourself doesn't mean that you can't accept help now and then, Bones."

She sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day and relented. She allowed him to help her out of her lab coat and into her jacket, grabbed her bag, and turned out the lights. Booth led her out of the lab with a hand at the small of her back, and though it crossed Brennan's mind to raise issue with his touch, she found instead that she didn't mind the contact. If she hadn't been so disoriented by the pain in her head, she would have been surprised at her own reaction.

Angela gathered her things and watched from her office as they left the lab, her smirk turning into a full blown grin.

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"You have a Grade 2 concussion, Dr. Brennan," the ER doctor told her. This wasn't particularly surprising news, but it irritated her to have it confirmed.

"I want to see my x-rays please," she said the professional tone she reserved for her students. The doctor was a young man, fresh out of his residency. He knew Brennan by reputation and was determined to make a good impression on her, so he handed her the films without argument. He watched as she examined them against the light board in the small exam room. She didn't speak, but merely frowned and nodded in agreement with his diagnosis.

Booth sat in the room's single chair, resting his elbows on his knees. The doctor noticed that the eyes of the broody-looking FBI agent never left his companion for long, and he assumed that their relationship must be more personal than professional, even if Dr. Brennan had referred to him as a 'colleague.' There had been a rather sticky moment when they had first come in and were being questioned by the intake nurse. When Dr. Brennan had explained the cause of her head injury, the nurse had immediately (and not so privately) suspected that Booth was to blame. He had practically shouted at the poor woman that he would never hurt her, and that the man who _had_ caused the damage sure as hell wouldn't be getting near enough to her to do it ever again.

"You can take aspirin or ibuprofen for the pain, avoid alcohol, and you should try to rest as much as possible."

"I _know_ ," she grumbled in return. The young doctor shifted uncomfortably and addressed Booth instead.

"She shouldn't be alone for at least 24 hours, sir. Just to make sure that further symptoms don't develop and her current symptoms don't get worse."

"Of course," Booth said. But he was feeling a bit uncomfortable too. He'd just convinced her to start talking to him again yesterday. He couldn't exactly push his way into her home and refuse to leave, even if it was for her own good. The doctor left to retrieve her discharge paperwork, and Booth looked over at Brennan hesitantly. She was laying on the bed again with her eyes closed, but he could tell she wasn't asleep.

"Bones... " Her eyes opened and she stared at him blearily. "The doctor says you can't be alone for 24 hours… Should I call Angela?"

Brennan rolled her eyes at the idea of imposing on her friend, but nodded anyway. She gave him her cell phone to make the call since he didn't have Angela's number, and he stepped out of the room to try to get a clear signal.

The line rang twice before Angela answered.

"Hey, Sweetie! I saw you and G-man leaving the lab earlier, looking awfully cozy, if you ask me. I knew he liked you." Booth grimaced at the observation.

"Nice, Angela."

"Whoa… Hey, Booth. Sorry about that." She didn't sound sorry at all. "Wait, why are you calling me from Bren's phone? Is she ok?" There was a hint of panic in her voice, and Booth rushed to reassure her.

"Yeah, she's ok, but we're at the ER…" He paused, not entirely sure how much Brennan had shared with Angela about the incident this morning.

"WHAT?!"

Apparently Brennan had shared absolutely nothing, and Booth filled her in quickly, becoming angry again as he retold the story.

"Wow," Angela said, stunned. "She told me he had a temper and that was why she broke up with him, but she didn't say anything about him actually hurting her. Back then, or today… Ugh, I can't believe she didn't tell me."

Booth empathized with Brennan's best friend. He had come to realize that Brennan kept a lot of things to herself, whether she should or not.

"Yeah, so anyway. She can't be alone for the next 24 hours, and I wasn't sure who else to call for her…"

"Oh, gosh… I'm sorry, but I had plans out of town for the evening and I'm already there. I left the lab right after you guys. My dad has a gig in Norfolk tonight, and I haven't seen him in a few months so I promised I'd come." _A gig? What?_ But she was still talking, "I'm like 3 hours away, Booth."

He sighed and asked, "Is there anyone else she would prefer? I don't have a problem staying with her, Angela, but I get the feeling she really doesn't want me there overnight."

Angela held back a grin and said, "No, there really isn't anyone else that I know of. I'm sure it'll be fine Booth. Just don't take no for an answer, she needs a firm hand. Besides she'll be sleeping most of the time anyway, right?"

Booth gave a huff of laughter at her words. _A firm hand?_ She made it sound like Brennan was an unruly toddler.

"Yeah, ok. I'll do my best. Any other pearls of wisdom?" he asked her lightly.

"Don't let her tell you to go away. She thinks she can take care of herself, and she can… but she doesn't."

"Yeah, I'd figured that much out on my own. Thanks, Angela. I'll tell her to expect a full inquisition tomorrow?"

"You know it," she replied with a chuckle. "See ya."

"Bye."

As Angela hung up the phone, she couldn't help but smile for her friend. Booth was a good man, and whether or not Brennan wanted to admit it, she needed that in her life. _She'd better not screw it up,_ Angela thought wryly.

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Booth returned to the exam room to find Brennan signing discharge papers with a hassled expression. She turned to look at him as he walked through the open sliding door.

"Why are you still here? I figured you'd gone home by now," Brennan said in confusion.

Booth's eyes narrowed in concern. "I took your phone to call Angela, remember?" He held up the phone in question and then handed it back to her. She gazed at it blankly. "They said that you needed to be observed for 24 hours, so I called Angela to see if she could come stay with you… You don't remember?"

"No, I must have forgotten, but it's ok. Minor memory loss isn't uncommon with concussions." She said the words with a shrug and finished signing the documents before handing them back to the nurse.

"Yeah, I know the doctor said that, but I thought your memory was ok… Anyway, Angela is out of town visiting her dad tonight and can't make it. So it's just me and you, Bones."

She was shaking her head before he even finished speaking. "Don't be ridiculous, that's completely unnecessary. Just give me a ride home, and I'll see you tomorrow."

"Nice try, but you're not going to convince me to disobey the doctor's orders."

"I'm a doctor too, you know," she argued a bit petulantly.

"Yeah, _I know,_ Bones," he said rolling his eyes for her benefit. "Trust me, I haven't forgotten."

They made their way slowly to the SUV, her dizziness now quite obvious in her deliberate gait. He opened the passenger side door for her and ignored the impatient look she gave him. At any other time, she would argue with his chivalry, but she just didn't have the will for it at the moment. So she allowed him to close the door behind her and watched thoughtfully as he circled around the front of the vehicle to his side to climb in.

She still didn't understand why he was there. She spent the ride home trying to come up with logical reasons why he should be so invested in her well-being. It wasn't his fault she was injured. If anything, it was her own. And Peter's of course. But Booth acted as though her welfare was his personal responsibility, and that baffled her. It had been so long since anyone in her life had been so interested in whether she was ok or not that she simply couldn't wrap her head around it. She reasoned that perhaps it was due to their agreement to work together on this case, but even that didn't add up. They weren't working now, and she had proven fairly succinctly today that she could do her job regardless of a head injury.

He stopped at a small restaurant and told her he'd called for take out before they left the hospital. She wondered how on earth he could possibly have known what to order for her, but then she remembered that he'd spoken to Angela and probably asked her. He was back quickly with the food, and she had to admit that it smelled delicious. She experienced an odd feeling of contentment as he flashed a charming smile in her direction. She returned it somewhat shyly.

She was deep in thought again as he pulled into her parking garage and asked her where her reserved space was. She directed him to it and exited the SUV as he did. _There_ , she thought smugly, _at least I didn't let him open my door for me._ She knew she was being a bit childish about it, but that kind of thing really irritated her. She was perfectly capable of opening her own doors…

They rode the elevator to her floor in silence, but when they got to her front door, she fumbled with the keys. Her hands didn't seem to want to cooperate with her brain at the moment, and Booth calmly placed his hand over hers to hold it steady and turn the key.

His touch on her skin was electric, and headache or no headache, Brennan noticed. Her breath caught in her chest, and she avoided his gaze as they entered her apartment. He turned to lock the door behind them and moved to put the food on her coffee table before turning to look at her.

"I'm going to make sure everything's secure, since we know the asshole picked your locks once today already."

She opened her mouth as if to argue but thought better of it. He had a point. And he was back quickly, declaring everything sound and secure.

"Why don't you go ahead and sit down? I can get us something to drink," he said, glancing in the direction of the kitchen.

"I'll get it. I don't have much to offer at the moment, I'm afraid. I didn't want to leave anything to spoil while I was gone, and I haven't gotten to the store yet."

"Water's fine, thanks."

He thanked her as she handed him a bottled water and sat next to him on the couch. As they ate, they talked about the case, passing cardboard containers back and forth between them. Neither of them missed the intimate feeling of their interactions, but they both avoided talking about it. Each time their eyes met, the heat of it made them both blush before looking away. When they had finally finished eating, Booth gathered up the empty cartons and carried them to the trash.

"Ready to sleep?" he asked politely. Brennan looked dead on her feet, and Booth would feel much better once she was safely tucked into her bed.

"Yes… You really don't need to stay Booth. You've been very kind tonight, and I do appreciate it. But you don't need to trouble yourself any further."

"Nonsense, Bones. It's no trouble," he replied with a smile. _Nice try again, Bones, but you won't win this one,_ he thought confidently.

Brennan sighed and gave up. It was just one night.

They argued a bit over sleeping arrangements. Booth wanted to camp out on her bedroom floor, in case she needed something. After all, the doctor had instructed that she not be alone. Brennan flat out refused his suggestion, insisting that it made no sense for him to subject himself to sleeping on the floor when there was a perfectly good guest room across the hall. He relented eventually but contended that the doors to both rooms be left open. Just in case. She acquiesced with a poorly concealed roll of her eyes and said goodnight.

As exhausted as they both were, one would think sleep should have come easily. But sleep took another hour to find them both. He lay quietly against the feather pillows in her guest room and thought back to their first case together. He smiled gently as he recalled her punching Judge Hasty and the way she had flirted openly with him in that pool hall. He remembered how brilliant she'd been, remembered the first time he'd noticed the adorable crease between her eyebrows that she got when she was analyzing something.

Across the hall, she was remembering as well. She thought of how his lips had felt when they'd been pressed against hers. At the time, it had seemed like their connection was the only thing she could sense. Like all the air and light and sound had been sucked out of the world, and there was only him. Kissing her. She recalled the FBI's non-fraternization policy that had led to the kiss in the first place. Because if not for that, she was sure it would have happened well before that night in the rain.

Eventually, they both drifted off to sleep, unknowingly sharing memories of the same sensations on the same night; both longing to feel them again. Several hours passed before Booth jolted awake and sat straight up in bed.

She was screaming.

 **Should I continue? Keep writing it just for me and never post again? Go live under a rock? Review and let me know!**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

His body seemed to be moving before his conscious mind told it to do so. In the space of a heartbeat, he was at her side, standing next to her bed and looking down in confusion. Her body twisted violently in her sheets, and her right arm swung out wildly as if trying to hit some unseen offender. He took a quick breath and forced his heart rate to slow. Booth had assumed someone was attacking her, perhaps that Peter had found a way in again. He looked down at his own hands as he numbly registered that he had grabbed his gun off of the bedside table without even realizing it. Carefully checking that the safety was still on, he placed it on her nightstand, knelt next to the bed, and tried to wake her up.

"Bones… Come on, Bones, wake up. You're ok. You're safe, no one's hurting you"

She was breathing heavily, clearly terrified and still asleep. Her screams had quieted to sobs, and the sound of it was heart-wrenching. He carefully placed a hand on her forehead, taking care to dodge her arm as it swung outward again. Within seconds, she stilled and quieted. Booth ran his hand gently upward over her hair, smoothing it away from her face and shushing her.

"That's good, Bones, come on. Wake up for me. You're ok…"

Brennan's eyes opened slowly then snapped quickly to his face. Her breathing was still a bit labored as she looked at him in confusion.

"Booth?"

"Yeah. It's ok, you had a nightmare. You were screaming," he told her. "Scared the shit out of me, by the way." His tone was meant to be teasing, but his heart was still beating wildly at the adrenaline rush.

"Oh… I'm sorry I woke you," she said. He smiled at her and belatedly realized his hand was still stroking her hair. He pulled it back awkwardly.

"No worries. I'm prone to them myself. Plus the doctor said sleep disturbances are common with concussions, right?" Booth was trying to put her at ease, and though she was thankful for his efforts, she felt unsure of herself. As she mentally shook off the effects of the dream and moved to sit up in bed, she heard his quiet intake of breath and looked at him quickly. His eyes were fixed to her torso, and she remembered instantly that her pajamas were quite a bit more revealing than what she would have chosen had she known he would be in her room in the middle of the night. _Oops._

She pulled the sheet modestly over herself, and they avoided one another's eyes for a moment. Booth didn't know what he had expected her to sleep in, but it wasn't that, and even in the dim moonlight coming through her window, he could see her plainly. She had stripped down to a sports bra and a pair of soft cotton shorts that he could tell were very short, even if she were still sitting in bed. He mentally chastised his body for its natural response to the sight of her, and kept talking nervously.

"Do you want something to drink? It's been long enough that you can have some more medicine…"

"Yes, but I'll get it," she replied. Her head did still ache quite a bit, and her body's adrenaline response to her dream hadn't helped matters.

"No," he said quickly, then looked embarrassed. The last thing he needed was to see her walking around her apartment dressed like she was. As much as he might _want_ to see that, it would only make his arousal more uncomfortable. She looked puzzled at his response, and he rushed to explain. "I mean… I'll get it, there's no need for you to get up. That's why I'm here, right?" He flashed his charm smile at her and stood to leave the room.

He didn't quite turn his body quickly enough, and she saw the slight bulge in his boxers. Brennan blushed and kept uncharacteristically silent as he left the room. _The man wore Scooby-Doo boxers?_ Booth had been wearing his suit at the hospital, she recalled. They hadn't stopped at his place to pick up extra clothing, so it made sense that he had simply made himself as comfortable as possible when he had gone to bed. She told herself that it was perfectly logical for him to sleep in only his boxers and a wife-beater that must have been concealed under his dress shirt. _Still_ , she thought as she took another deep and calming breath , _it's a nice surprise._ And she allowed her mind to drift a bit, imagining what his skin might feel like under her fingers, what his strong arms might feel like around her...

While Brennan was dealing with her own physical response to the sight of his body, Booth stood in the kitchen and took several cleansing breaths until he had himself under control. He could only imagine what she would think if she knew that the mere sight of her scantily-clad body had made him hard. He felt like a teenager again and shook his head in derision. _Get it together, Seeley,_ he told himself. _She has a damned concussion, and even if she didn't, the last thing she needs is you making the moves on her right now._ He inhaled deeply again, feeling a bit more in-control of himself, then he grabbed a bottle of water and a couple of pills before heading back to her bedroom.

"Here you go," he told her with an awkward smile. Brennan nodded in thanks and knocked back the medicine with a swig of water.

"Thank you, Booth. You can go back to bed, I'm sorry for waking you."

"It's ok," he said reassuringly. "Do you...want to talk about it?" She looked at him curiously, certain that he couldn't mean what she _thought_ he meant. "Your dream, I mean."

"Oh. No, Booth, there's no need to trouble yourself. Go back to sleep." She softened the instruction with a gentle smile, and he returned it. Booth hesitated a moment, but then shrugged. He knew he couldn't push her to share the details with him. He moved to leave the room and was nearly to the door when her bedside lamp was switched on. He turned back to look at her, eyes blinking spastically as they tried to adjust to the light change. She was reaching for her laptop.

"What are you doing?"

"I won't be able to sleep again any time soon. May as well get some work done." She spoke the words with certainty, knowing her that her mind never let her simply go back to sleep after a dream like _that_. And he heard the conviction in her statement, wondering if she had nightmares very often.

"You really should try, Bones." She shot him a frustrated look at the use of his nickname for her, but said nothing. "You and I both know that you will heal faster if you rest like you're supposed to. I know nightmares are a pain in the ass, and they mess with your head. But you need to be resting, not looking at a computer screen."

"I'll be fine," she responded automatically. At the exasperated look he gave her, she sighed and continued, "I just want to answer a few emails that I didn't get to earlier. It shouldn't take long. There's no need for your concern."

He drew himself up in determination and prepared himself mentally for an argument before saying, "Fine. But I'm staying in here with you then, until you fall asleep." She looked startled at his words, and he continued before she could speak, "I promised your doctor that I'd keep an eye on you overnight, and that's what I'm going to do."

Her mouth gaped open and closed a couple of times as she watched him circle to the other side of her bed and sit next to her, on top of the blankets.

"Booth, that's completely unnecessary. I'm an adult, I can look after myself," she worked to maintain the appropriate degree of disapproval in her voice. But in reality, the last thing she wanted after reliving that horrible experience in her dream was to be alone. She shuddered as the memory of it swept over her again.

"I know you can, Bones. I do. I know you _can_ take care of yourself, but the problem is that you _don't_. You skip meals, skip sleep, and run yourself ragged to do your job." He looked directly into her eyes and continued, "Don't get me wrong, your dedication is admirable. But your well-being is just as important as the work you do. Undervaluing one undervalues the other."

And for once, Brennan didn't argue with him. His reasoning was sound, and she knew that she had a tendency to forget everything but her work sometimes. It wasn't unusual for her to go days without sleeping, eating very little, because she was hyper-focused on a set of remains. He wasn't the first to tell her that she neglected herself in favor of her work. She gave a small sigh in resignation, and simply nodded.

He was pleased that she didn't argue with him and took it as a good sign. She needed someone to watch out for her, and maybe, _just maybe_ , she wouldn't mind if that person was him. He knew immediately in that moment, as he looked into her beautiful pale eyes, that he wanted the job. The certainty of it made him feel simultaneously warm and nervous.

Brennan looked back to her laptop and answered an email from Hodgins about the case. She showed Booth what he had written and they theorized back and forth a bit about how the particulates in question might have ended up where they did. As they talked and debated, she slowly realized that she felt different around him. If it were any other man sitting next to her in bed, there was really only one reason he would be there. And even then, Brennan would make certain that she was alone again before relaxing enough to fall asleep.

Not that she wasn't attracted to Booth in _that_ way as well, but she had never before been so at ease around a man. She felt...safe. The clarity of that quiet revelation stunned her, and when he spoke again, she realized that she had been silent for several minutes.

"Bones? You ok?" He had been watching her, and it was plain on her face that she was deep in thought, working something out that was most likely leaps and bounds beyond anything he could understand. He assumed that she was thinking about the case, but then he saw her skin flush as her attention returned to him again. Though he didn't know what it meant, he couldn't help but feel encouraged by it somehow.

"Yes, of course. I'm sorry, my mind was wandering I suppose." She looked down at her hands self-consciously.

"It's ok… Want to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?"

"About whatever's bothering you."

"Why would anything be bothering me?" she asked, not realizing that she was admitting to feeling content in his presence; that being next to him in her bed didn't bother her. But he understood the subtext perfectly well and smiled in response. His smile grew a bit wider as he realized that she had let her nickname slip by several times without admonishing him.

"No reason I guess, I just didn't know if maybe your nightmare was still upsetting you," he shrugged.

This was apparently the wrong thing to say, and he saw her eyes become guarded again before saying, "Of course not. It's really not a big deal, Booth."

He gazed at her quietly for a few moments, taking in her dismissive tone and an expression that told him she _was_ in fact still a bit shaken.

"You know, Bones, it's ok to open up to people once in a while. Partners…they share things. Builds trust."

"Since when are we partners?" This brought him up short, and he looked a little saddened at her question before looking away.

"I apologize for the assumption."

She immediately felt guilty for putting that expression on his face. She hadn't meant to hurt his feelings, she was just surprised at his sudden use of the label. Brennan thought carefully for a moment, trying to think of a way to erase the disappointment she saw in his handsome features.

"I'm sorry," she said gently, placing her hand on his arm tentatively to encourage him to look at her. "I didn't mean to imply that I dislike the term or the idea of working with you again after this case… I wasn't aware that you thought of me that way, and it caught me off-guard. That's all."

"It's ok. I know we haven't discussed it yet, but… I like working with you. Even if you do make me a little crazy," he said with a note of teasing clear in his voice. They smiled at each other, and she didn't need to tell him that the feeling was mutual. She gazed at him speculatively, then made a decision. He watched her lean over to put her laptop away and turn back to him.

Brennan took a deep breath and scooted down in the bed to lay her injured head back on her pillow. He was uncomfortable for a moment, unsure if she wanted him to leave so she could sleep. But before he could decide one way or the other, she spoke again.

"I don't have nightmares often. Which, all things considered, is fairly surprising I guess. But I've noticed that when I fall asleep with a headache, I nearly always wake from bad dreams." She wasn't looking at him as she spoke, studying her fingernails instead. But he could tell she had more to say, so he kept silent and waited. He was not disappointed.

"I was in El Salvador three years ago. Identifying victims of the Death Squads... I was in a tent set up by one of the grave sites. I was working with the remains of a young girl, maybe thirteen. She'd been shot in the head and dumped into a well." She paused, remembering, but she still avoided his gaze. "This cop shows up, and he might've been a soldier...it's not easy to tell. I thought he was there to guard me, but he told me to stop. When I refused, he called in two others. They put a bag over my head and tossed me into a cell with a dirt floor and no windows."

Booth had stopped breathing, his entire body rigid and his eyes wide with stress. Brennan noticed the sudden absence of the sound of his breathing and finally looked at him. They locked eyes for a few moments, and he released the breath he'd been holding.

"For how long?" he asked in a quiet voice that did nothing to hide his shock.

"Later I found out it was three days. But… I thought it was a week, maybe more. He came in every day and made me believe I was going to die. He said that he'd shoot me and toss me into a well and that no one would ever know who I was or what became of me. And I might not have been so afraid of him if I hadn't known that he was absolutely right. I had no one to wonder what happened to me…" She trailed off, remembering the feeling of complete terror washing over her as the man held his gun to her temple and cocked it threateningly. She shuddered, but continued. As difficult as it might be to admit that vulnerability to him, she knew that both he and Angela had been correct with their advice. If she expected to learn more about him, to work with him as his partner in the future, she needed to offer up something of herself.

He was still quiet, sensing that she wasn't finished speaking, but it was all he could do not to pull her into his arms and hold her or at the very least grasp her hand. He was no stranger to the kind of fear she was describing, and he knew full well the havoc it could wreak on a person's mind. But he remained still, afraid to rock the boat now that she was being so open with him.

"The mass grave site I worked on in Guatemala wasn't far from the El-Salvadoran border, and local politics haven't changed all that much. I wasn't held captive this time, but there were...less than subtle threats that our team would be...disposed of...if we continued working."

Booth listened in horror and incredulity that she would willingly place herself in that kind of danger for a bunch of dead bodies. He couldn't hold back his questions any longer at that point.

"Why didn't you have security in a place like that?" he asked in disbelief. _Places_ , he mentally corrected. She had done this more than once.

Brennan felt mildly offended at the question and thought he was being condescending to assume that she would be stupid enough to go into hostile territory without any kind of protection. She scowled a bit as she answered.

"We did have security, of course. Better in Guatemala than in El Salvador; I learned my lesson." He didn't miss the offended tone of her voice, and for some reason it irritated him. _If she'd really learned her lesson then why would she ever take the risk again?_

"Sorry, I just…" he paused, searching for the words he wanted. "Why on earth would you put yourself in that kind of danger for a bunch of bones?" Booth ran a hand through his hair, thinking with a chill that she could have easily died before he'd even had the chance to know her. The thought nauseated him.

Her forehead creased in confusion. "I do it for the same reason that you undoubtedly put yourself at risk in the military, and now in the FBI. _Because it's the right thing to do._ " He looked at her in surprise that she would compare her actions to his, and she continued, "You put your particular skills to good use every day with the goals of seeing justice done, of saving innocent lives. It's no different in my case, at least as far as my motivations are concerned. This is what I can do. I can give these people back to their families, provide closure and answers to those who might never have it otherwise. By giving them back their identities and telling their story, I can help to make sure those responsible for their deaths are held accountable. How is that so different than what you do?"

He stared at her, stunned at her words, and couldn't come up with the words to respond. He remembered that the desire for justice was something that he'd already known about her, but he hadn't realized that it went beyond simply identifying a body here and there for the FBI. Booth found himself feeling no small degree of amazement at her courage and dedication. Sure, he took similar risks, maybe even bigger ones, in his line of work. But he'd been trained for that. He'd been a soldier, a Ranger. A sniper. He had served justice himself more times than he wanted to recall.

But however admirable her principles may be, Brennan's behavior quite simply terrified him. He knew, of course, that she probably had many more stories like this one, and he tried not to think about how many times she might have put herself in that kind of danger. As he looked at her stubborn expression, Booth was reminded again of his promise to his boss that he would be responsible for her. He had taken on the task without hesitation, because he was, at his core, a protector. It had never crossed his mind to refuse. But he knew now that he would keep her safe whether his boss had asked him to or not, and it certainly went farther than simply watching her back when he took her into the field.

He breathed another sigh as he considered her with a growing affection. _She's such a good person_ , he thought. And she was extremely misunderstood. His co-workers wouldn't avoid her or gossip about her like they did if any of them really knew her. They thought her to be cold and uncaring, and the contrast between perception and reality was glaring. He resolved to put a stop to _that_ too. Someone needed to stand up for her at the Bureau, and he was damned sure going to make sure she got the credit she deserved.

Brennan watched him cautiously, as he was clearly deep in thought, processing what she had told him. She was pleased with herself that he hadn't continued to argue with the logic she had laid out for him. Though she couldn't quite decipher the expression on his face, he still looked troubled. She wanted to be done talking about herself, feeling suddenly exposed as she realized just how much she had 'offered up.'

"You said earlier that you knew how troublesome nightmares can be," she said tentatively. "It sounded like you were speaking from experience. Are yours about your time in the army?"

He didn't really want to talk about that, but he realized with pride that she had followed his advice about opening up. And if nothing else, he owed her the courtesy of reciprocation.

"I served in the Gulf War, kind of all over: Iraq, Kuwait, some other places I can't talk about…" He paused, realizing that the words he'd chosen made it sound like he was refusing to be honest with her, and he rushed on. "Not that I don't want you to know or anything, just… it's classified." She nodded astutely that she did indeed understand, and he relaxed. He had her full attention and her interest was more than merely polite. His back had started to ache, however, and he reclined backward next to her as he continued to speak.

"I, uh… I was held prisoner too for a while. Our unit was ambushed on return from a covert op, and more than half of us were killed. The rest of us were held as prisoners of war until the army tracked us down and pulled us out." He looked at her carefully, measuring her expression. "It was… a bit worse than what happened to you. And we were held for weeks rather than days." He trailed off again, unsure how much detail he could really bare to give her.

"I noticed the pain in your feet," she said simply, cutting right to the chase. "Beating the soles of the feet with… pipes or rubber hoses is a common method of torture in the Middle East."

He regarded her carefully. "How could you possibly know that? About the pain, I mean."

"One of my doctorates is in kinesiology, and you have clear kinetic markers which indicate you suffer from severe pain in your feet, as well as lower back pain, and some residual pain from a knee injury that probably happened in adolescence."

He was impressed, though he supposed he really shouldn't have been. She was a genius, after all. "Yeah, I have some disc degeneration-"

"In your lumbar region."

"Yeah," he smiled indulgently at her. "And I blew out my knee in high school, playing basketball."

She smiled back at him, a little teasingly. "Were you any good?" His grin widened appreciatively, and he adopted a playfully wounded expression.

"Hell yeah, I was. Starting point guard, baby. I had a scholarship all lined up for Penn State; I would've gone all the way!"

"I don't know what that means," she said in confusion. She had registered the new moniker and wondered if he'd even known he used it. What _didn't_ cross her mind was why she'd allowed it.

"What what means?"

"'All the way?' All the way to what?"

"It's just an expression, Bones. I meant that I had a full ride to Penn State, could've played through my college years and maybe even have gone pro after that…" He trailed off a bit dejectedly. "Things might've been a lot different. I might not have gone into the army at all."

"Why did you choose that path then?" He glanced back at her to see that she was genuinely interested.

"I guess it's just like you said. I wanted to make a difference in the world, see justice done, fight for what's right." Their eyes met in mutual understanding.

"Do you feel like you've succeeded?" She watched his expression become a bit darker and wondered if she had overstepped a boundary.

"At the time, I certainly felt like I was doing the right thing. Though in retrospect, I'm not sure… I was a sniper," he admitted quietly. "The lines are blurred in my mind now, you know? Even though I know the people I took out were evil and that their deaths saved dozens, maybe hundreds, of innocent lives… It still just feels like murder to me."

She considers his words for a moment, understanding more than she probably would had she been listening to the same speech from anyone else.

"I understand your logic for feeling that way… but I disagree with your conclusion. You didn't decide to kill anyone on your own. You followed orders from those in charge who presumably knew more about the circumstances than you did. You shouldn't hold yourself to some impossible standard when you were merely doing the job you were assigned. And you shouldn't feel guilty for doing your job well; if someone less skilled had been pulling the trigger rather than you, more innocent lives might have been lost."

Her sentiments were nothing he hadn't heard before, mostly from his grandfather and his priest. But to hear her admonish him for his guilt was surprising. She barely knew him, but her acceptance of his past and his faults was given seemingly without hesitation. He smiled at her warmly, his eyes thanking her for her compassion more than any words ever could.

"Thanks, Bones." It came out in a whisper, and she smiled back as her eyes began to drift shut. He took the opportunity to really look at her, his eyes tracing the fine contours of her face until he felt he would never forget what she looked like, even if he lived to be a hundred. He smiled fondly at her again and smoothed her hair gently away from her face. Booth briefly considered that he should probably return to the guest room, but he found her presence somehow intoxicating. And he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and enjoy her scent and the sound of her even breathing so near to him. He reached over her to switch off the bedside lamp and lay back down.

He was still laying on top of the blankets, he reassured himself. It was perfectly innocent.

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Brennan was the first to wake the next morning. The blankets were tangled around her feet, and her alarm hadn't gone off yet, but something had pulled her out of sleep a little early. She lay quietly for a moment, trying to decide if she cared enough to figure out what it was, and as she inhaled deeply, she belatedly recognized the pressure of arms around her. The memory of the previous night came back to her in a torrent, and she realized that they must have dozed off and somehow gravitated toward each other in their sleep.

It was an incredibly pleasant feeling, and Brennan had no desire to move just then. Booth was stretched out behind her, one arm under her head and the other wrapped around her abdomen. His legs were pressed against hers as well, and she could feel his breath ghosting over the skin on her neck. He smelled amazing. It was part aftershave, part soap, and part Booth. Just then, he shifted a bit and something _else_ became obvious to her. She smirked to herself. Apparently she wasn't the only one enjoying the embrace. She moved her hips a tiny bit and was rewarded with the feel of his sizable morning arousal pressed against her backside.

She took care to stay still, not wanting to admit to herself that she was not only thoroughly enjoying the feeling of his arms around her, but also trying like hell to ignore the warm ache that had begun at her core. _It's just a natural biological reaction to pheromones, nothing more,_ she told herself firmly. She couldn't imagine how he could possibly find her attractive after the last 24 hours. She'd been in pain for most of the day, said the wrong things to the victim's parents, and had to endure the indignity of an ER visit in his company. It was ridiculous to think that his body's natural morning state had anything to do with _her_.

Booth woke several minutes afterward. Even before he was fully lucid, he recognized the delicious feeling of a woman in his arms. He squeezed her a bit tighter, held her a bit closer, and inhaled deeply. But then he froze. _He knew that scent_. It had taunted him since he had picked her up from the airport a few days earlier, and now it seemed to infiltrate every atom of his being. _Bones_.

His eyes opened cautiously, realizing that not only did he have his arms around her, but that other parts of his anatomy were enjoying her proximity just a little too much. Embarrassed, he tried to determine whether or not she was still asleep. Her breathing was deep and even, and he hoped that meant she was asleep. He awkwardly attempted to withdraw his arm from beneath her head in order to escape to the bathroom, but as he moved she rolled over to face him. Her eyes were a brilliant shade of blue that he was coming to recognize usually indicated that her brain was in overdrive.

"Hi," she said, breaking the tension.

"Hi." There was no doubt that she had felt his arousal, but she didn't comment on it. He had lifted the arm that had been draped over her waist, but the other was still pinned beneath her. They were very, very close, their lips mere inches apart. He tried not to look at her smirking mouth or wonder how she might react if he closed the distance between them.

"How are you feeling?" he asked instead. "Head still hurt?"

Her uncertainty showed a little more in her expression. "Just a little. It's much better than last night."

"Good. We should probably get up then…" She nodded but didn't move. Instead they communicated in silent challenges with their eyes. She knew full well that he couldn't get out of bed without embarrassing himself even more, and he _knew_ that she knew it. After nearly a full minute of what Angela would undoubtedly call 'eye sex,' Brennan sighed a little and got up from the bed, heading for the shower.

"You're welcome to use the shower in the guest bathroom," she said over her shoulder.

"Uh...ok. Thanks."

As soon as the bathroom door closed behind her, he jumped quickly from the bed and headed off to the guest bathroom. He wasn't sure there was enough icy water in the world to chill the heat that seared through him at the moment, but he was sure as hell going to try. His arms tingled in the places where they had touched her, as if a real electrical charge had passed between them. Her scent seemed to be imprinted in his senses, and he had grown impossibly harder as he'd watched her cross the room in her poor excuse for pajamas. _What the hell is wrong with me? She's a co-worker_. If this case went well, she would be more than that. A partner. A _work_ partner, he corrected himself.

Maybe there had been a moment during their last case that they could have been more, but he had royally screwed that up. And nothing he could do or say would unring that bell. He had no business lusting after her now. His guilt amped up a bit more as he recalled how she had opened up to him the night before. She was incredible woman, and she deserved better than him, even if their relationship wasn't centered around work.

Frustrated with himself, he reached into the shower stall and set the water temperature as low as his aching feet could stand it.

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Brennan was having a similar crisis of conscience. _What the hell is wrong with me?_ She wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror and frowned at her reflection. There was no way she could get involved with him. Their first case had proven that, hadn't it? Admitting an attraction was one thing, acting on it in spite of their complicating circumstances was another. That was the logical conclusion that indicated how she should behave.

So why then had she found herself wanting nothing more than to press her lips to his, to see if he tasted the way she remembered? Why hadn't she pulled out of his arms immediately when she'd awoken? Why had she been admiring his physique and fine features every time they'd been together?

She huffed in frustration and entered the bedroom to get dressed. She had no answers to those questions other than that she had been weak. With any other man, she would have simply informed the man in question of her attraction and asked if it was mutual. She would have no qualms about finding a way to facilitate a hormonal release to satisfy her biological urges.

But this was Booth. Her usual tactics would be inappropriate due to their working relationship. Not to mention, she was sure that he must think her too weak even to handle her own safety or care for herself after an injury. It hadn't seemed to matter how many times she argued the case of her self-sufficiency, he hadn't relented. _Damned alpha-male_. She hoped that, at the very least, their discussion had proven to him that she was a strong person-someone worthy of being his partner.

She carefully chose a rather low cut camisole and a blue button down shirt to go over it, choosing to ignore the fact that she was interested in seeing Booth's reaction to her clothing. She quickly pulled on a pair of dark jeans, socks, and boots. Brennan didn't generally wear a lot of makeup, but today she chose to enhance her eyes and lips a little. She again reassured herself that it had nothing to do with Booth. Once her hair was dried, she left the bedroom, tilting her head to secure her earrings.

Booth had finished showering quickly and dressed in the suit he had worn yesterday. Brennan found him in her kitchen, making coffee. He looked up as she came into view, and his eyes widened a bit. The tank top she'd chosen was cut even lower than the one she'd been wearing the other day. He forced himself to look away quickly and hoped she hadn't noticed him gawking.

Brennan was looking instead at the coffee in surprise. She wasn't sure whether to feel irritated by his casual behavior or thankful that she would get her caffeine sooner rather than later. Remembering their discussion the night before though, she settled on thankful. She had shared more details of her life with him than she had with any man in years. Even Angela didn't know about what had happened to her in El Salvador.

"I'll need to stop by my place on the way to the lab and change into a fresh suit, but we probably have time to eat a quick breakfast before we go," Booth informed her pleasantly. His tone compensated for his lack of eye contact. Cold shower or not, if he was going to get through the day with her, he needed to focus his eyes on something else.

"I don't like to eat this early," she said. "And even if I did, I don't have much food here, remember?"

"Oh, right. Sorry." He glanced quickly at her, then away again and focused on what she was adding to her coffee. "Well, I can grab something at my place then."

She nodded and began to gather her things into the shoulder bag that, not so long ago, had held a decomposed skull. He followed her out the door, fidgeting with the items in his pockets as he watched her lock it from the outside.

"You sure your headache is better, Bones? I could give you a ride to the lab, it won't take me long to change."

She opened her mouth to tell him not to call her 'Bones,' but swallowed the words almost immediately. The nickname reminded her of the intimacy she'd felt during their conversation the night before. It was that feeling of safety again, and she enjoyed it too much to push it away just now.

Instead, she said, "No, that's all right. I have a busy morning, and my headache is much more manageable today."

They rode the elevator down in silence, each preoccupied with their own thoughts. Booth had finally given up trying not to look at her and settled for trying to only look at her face instead. It was a challenge.

As the elevator doors opened, she walked out first and began to walk in the direction of her vehicle when his voice made her look back.

"See ya later, Bones. I'll give you a call or stop by if there's any progress on the case?" He ended the statement as a question, checking to make sure she was ok with that arrangement.

"That's fine. And I'll let you know when we have something else too." She hesitated and took a few steps back toward him. "I'm not sure I thanked you for last night," she said awkwardly. "I don't always convey my feelings appropriately, but I do appreciate your kindness."

He grinned that charming smile again, and she was powerless to stop her lips from curving upward in return. "Don't mention it, Bones. I'll talk to you later."

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As Booth headed toward his apartment, Brennan decided to make a quick stop on her way to the lab. Her mind was focused on the case now, and while the evidence they'd collected so far was compelling, it still wasn't enough. She was going to have to take this to the next level, and she had a pretty good idea how to do it.

She approached Senator Bethlehem as he crossed the vaulted lobby of the Senatorial offices building. His assistant, _Ken Something_ , she thought, followed him obligingly. When a simple request for a DNA sample proved unfruitful, she quickly swiped the Senator's chewing gum from the trash can instead. Ken Something tried to stop her from leaving with it, but he was easily dealt with. As she walked out the doors, she pulled an evidence bag from her jacket pocket and sealed the gum inside. With any luck, they could match the DNA in his saliva to that of the fetal bones they'd found.

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"Don't be nice to me after I got you in trouble."

"Your heart was in the right place."

"No, I'm not a heart person, _you're_ a heart person. I'm a brain person," she argued. "You vouched for me."

"Forget it…"

"No. I won't," she said with determination. "You think it was the Senator?" He gazed at her a moment before answering.

"Look, the Senator has had sex with a dozen of those interns, and he hasn't killed any of them. Our best bet is still the stalker." His use of the word 'our' didn't escape her. He didn't care whether Cullen had told her to go back to her lab for good or not. _He wanted her with him._

"You want to check him out? We can...I don't know, what do you call it… roost him?" she asked with barely concealed enthusiasm.

"Rouse," Booth corrected, grinning fondly at her.

"Rouse. Well the murderer snatched a Bronze Star from Cleo's neck, so…"

"I've got twelve hours before this case is over and I'm off it, so… Let's go rouse."

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"Okay, Bones, you go knock on his door. I'm gonna go around the back."

"Why?" she asked in surprise.

"Because there's no way he's gonna talk to you once he knows why you're here." Brennan was still a bit confused, but nodded and got out of the car.

She knocked and was greeted by a man's face, slightly obscured by the security chain on his door.

"Mr. Laurier, we have a warrant to search your apartment-" The door slammed abruptly in her face, and she could hear Booth speaking on the other side before it opened again. Booth had the man face down on the floor, and Brennan couldn't help but be impressed at his efficiency.

A short while later, Booth was poking around the apartment as Laurier read the warrant.

"You're looking for a Bronze Star?" Laurier asked Brennan. "Like the one Cleo wore?"

"Exactly like that one," she replied.

"I don't have it."

"Stalkers sometimes retain keepsakes." She knew this from a bit of personal experience, and she knew she was right when Booth nodded approvingly.

Booth watched and listened as Laurier trash-talked Ken Thompson and Senator Bethlehem, proclaimed his love for Cleo, and eyed Brennan with an interest that seemed to make her uncomfortable. He glared at Laurier, who had the good sense took away. It seemed that Laurier had discovered a new object of infatuation, and Booth found himself compelled to smack that dreamy look right off the man's face.

As they walked back to the car, Booth's hand came to rest protectively on the small of Brennan's back. She registered the contact pleasantly.

"What a creep," he said tersely.

"I concur. Angela just texted. She finished recreating the murder scenario."

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Booth watched the simulation play out on the Angelator with some degree of skepticism. He knew these people were brilliant and extremely competent, but he just wasn't sure if this was going to be enough. He listened as the squints completed each other's thoughts aloud and drew to the scenario to its conclusion.

"You expect me to declare war on a _United States Senator_ based on your little holographic crystal ball?" The question came out a bit more harsh than he'd intended, and Brennan quickly argued back.

"It's not magic. It's a logical recreation of events based on evidence."

"No more valid than my gut," he insisted stubbornly.

"A good hypothesis withstands testing, that's what makes it a good hypothesis," said Zack.

"It's not a hypothesis. You have a dead girl and a United States Senator, plus a nifty magic and lights show. It will never hold up in the real world."

Brennan glared at him in irritation and addressed the rest of the squints, "Come on, we're done here."

After they had filed out, Booth stood alone with Angela, feeling a bit guilty. "Wow. Touchy…" Angela didn't see the guilt in his expression and replied a bit testily.

"You must know about her family. Both parents vanish when she's fifteen? She knows plenty about 'the real world.'"

"Yeah… I know the story, read the file. Cops never found anything."

"Yeah," Angela said sadly. "Brennan figures that if maybe somebody like her had been there…"

Booth shook his head with a sigh. "For someone who hates psychology, she sure has a lot of it."

"Tell me about it," she commiserated. "Hey, I didn't get a chance to thank you for taking her to the ER and all that. I didn't know what was going on until you called." Booth didn't miss the trace of bitterness in Angela's voice. Apparently Brennan hadn't shared the encounter with Peter with her best friend, and Angela seemed hurt but unsurprised. Booth wondered if Brennan would have ever told her anything had he not insisted she get medical treatment.

"It was no problem," he answered. He was tempted to fill Angela in on the details but kept silent. Brennan had confided in him more than he'd ever expected the night before, and he didn't want to betray that confidence even in good intention. When she wanted Angela to know what had happened, she would tell her. _Or Angela would wheedle it out of her_ , he thought with a wry grin. He got the impression that Angela was a forced to be reckoned with when she wanted to be.

Booth looked for Brennan in her office but found it empty. Dodging a glare from Zack on his way out, he made his way out of the lab and back to his car. He had a pretty good idea where she'd gone. He was coming to realize that they had a lot more in common than it had first appeared. She was frustrated. And if he was still a gambling man, he'd bet his next paycheck that she had gone exactly where _he_ would go to blow off some steam.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who has followed, favorited, and reviewed! This story is just pouring out of me right now, so here I am with another chapter. I don't know that I will always post so many so quickly, but for now I'm enjoying it. I decided that rather than make lengthy notes answering questions from reviews each time, I will put the information on my profile page. I do, however, need to answer one comment from someone I couldn't PM. She mentioned that the story sounded familiar. And to be honest, it very well may. I have read a LOT of Bones FF, so who can say what my brain decides to draw ideas from. However, I don't recall ever reading anything that gave Peter more involvement in how things developed. I apologize if someone has a similar story out there though. It's certainly not my intention to swipe ideas.**

 **I would also appreciate some feedback on rating and sexual content. I will probably be writing the sex part of this story fairly soon, and I know that some people are sensitive about that. I started this at a T mostly to see if there was interest in it at all before I obligated myself to writing the steamy bits. I've never written smut, but for this particular story, I feel like their encounters will be more passionate and sensual than smutty. I just feel like it fits the characters better. And the language won't get any worse than what I've already posted. So, the sex scenes will be tastefully detailed because it will be such a huge factor in relationship and character development. Skipping it completely doesn't feel right. Does anyone have such an issue with it that they will stop reading when I have to change the rating?**

 **Happy Reading! Review if you can. :)**

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Chapter 3

Gunshots rang out in a steady procession, and Brennan welcomed the force of the recoil from pistol she held. She emptied one clip, and her mouth set into a firm line as she loaded another and took aim again. Seeley Booth had gotten to her.

She didn't know why she had been so bothered by his cynicism. It wasn't as though she and her team had never been critiqued before. But to hear it come from him, in that smooth voice that sent chills over her body, and especially after last night, was just too much. She had gone against every instinct of self-preservation she had and shared things about herself that almost no one knew. And the worst of it was that she knew his words wouldn't have irritated her so much if she weren't battling a physical attraction to him.

She'd watched him a bit more closely today, mostly because she couldn't help herself, and she'd noticed a few things. He seemed to be looking at her every time she snuck a peek at him. His expression seemed to perk up when he saw her. He paid attention when she spoke, even if half the time he seemed to be having trouble following what she said. He kept finding ways to touch her; whether it be a hand on her back or the way he had carefully smoothed her hair away from her face last night. He had probably thought she was asleep, but the gentle touch had stirred her into awareness just enough. Booth had certainly had a physical reaction to her in bed this morning, and it was by no means a _small_ one.

She emptied the second clip, feeling a bit more flustered, and she tensed slightly when she heard his voice behind her.

"Thought I'd find you here." He walked with casual grace to stand next to her. "You know, being a good shot and doing martial arts… It's all your way of dealing. Who knows better than you how fragile life can be?" She replaced the target with a clean one and pursed her lips.

Not in the mood to be goaded, she replied, "Maybe an Army Ranger sniper who became an FBI homicide investigator?"

He huffed a tiny laugh and gazed at her speculatively. "Do you mind?" he asked, gesturing to the gun in her hand.

"Be my guest"

"Thank you." His hand brushed hers slightly when he took the weapon from her, and they both ignored the slight jolt from the other's touch. Booth replaced the empty clip with a new one and took a few shots at the target before pressing the button that would move the paper toward them.

She looked at his rather poor example of marksmanship and chuckled. "Were you any good at being a sniper?"

He looked at her and spoke in a low tone. "A sniper gets to know a little something about killers. Senator Bethlehem? He's no killer."

"Oh, and Oliver Laurier is?" His expression shifted minutely and he stepped closer to her. She stepped backward until she felt the partition wall against her back.

"The way I read Laurier, he's unhinged. That makes him dangerous." She narrowed her eyes and let a smirk play around her lips. _This is what's dangerous_ , she thought.

"That'd be your _gut_ telling you that, correct?" Her voice took on a sultry quality that made his groin ache.

"You know, homicides… they're not solved by scientists. They're solved by guys like me, asking a thousand different questions a thousand times, catching people telling lies, every time." He couldn't help but look down at her lips as they parted very slightly. "You're great at what you do, Bones, but you don't solve murders. Cops do."

His face, his mouth, was literally within inches of hers, and he had brought his right hand to rest on the wall beside her. She was effectively trapped by his body, and every nerve in her body was fully aware of the fact. But she couldn't let herself forget that she was irritated with him. Even if she wished he would stop talking and take her right against that wall.

"Cleo Eller was killed on a cement floor sprinkled with diatomaceous earth. Traces of her blood will still be in that cement. One of us is wrong, maybe both of us. But if Bethlehem wasn't a Senator, you'd be right there in his basement looking for that killing floor. You're afraid of him," she challenged huskily. "Your hypothesis is that squints don't solve murders, and cops do… Prove it." She smiled tauntingly at him and continued nearly at a whisper. "Be a cop."

Brennan ducked under his arm and walked away, and she was nearly to the stairs when she heard him take two shots in rapid succession. She let out a breathy chuckle. _Seems I'm not the only one feeling sexually frustrated today,_ she thought. _Good._

She didn't turn back to look at the target. If she had, she'd have known right away that the first shots he took were intentionally poor. He'd wanted to throw her off a bit, frustrated that she seemed to think she knew everything about...well _everything_. And if he were honest with himself, she had left him in such a state that he was surprised he'd hit the damn target at all with those two shots.

He grumbled to himself, shaken that he had come so close to making a move on her. Because he had no doubt that if she'd stayed a few more minutes, he'd have kissed that smug smile off her beautiful face. But she'd left. And now Booth was tempted to run home for a _second_ cold shower that day.

The worst of it was that she had been right. He was letting politics direct his actions with this investigation, and that would not do.

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Evening fell, and she found him sitting in his office, watching the Ellers' home movies. He had left a message with Zack that he wanted to see her. She knocked and cleared her throat hesitantly. He acknowledged her, but looked back at the screen quickly.

"They look pretty happy, don't they?" he asked. "Otherwise they wouldn't turn on the camera I guess."

She looked at the screen for a moment. "Yes. They do." He was quiet for another moment, then turned his full attention to her, handing her a piece of paper. She studied it briefly in surprise.

"You got a warrant to search Bethlehem's place?"

He nodded. "You were right. If Bethlehem wasn't a senator, I'd be in that basement, looking for that killing floor… But you're wrong-I was never afraid of that guy and I'm not doing this because you're a genius. I'm doing this for Cleo."

She accepted his words with grace and felt more than a little proud. He'd trusted her enough to listen to her. A new warmth began to glow inside her as they left his office and headed to elevator.

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Booth was frustrated. Not only had they failed to recover the evidence they needed to stick it to the Senator, but some asshole had leaked the warrant to the media. As if he needed more to deal with right now. He spoke quietly with a fellow agent and kept a cautious eye on Brennan. She was a good twenty feet away from him, standing in front of the iron gate to the Senator's property. At first she merely observed the proceedings with apparent detachment, but someone behind her must've gotten her attention, because she turned and walked closer to the gate.

His eyes followed her, and he scowled. Oliver Laurier. Holding a copy of her book. He politely ended his conversation with the other agent and walked toward Brennan. By the time he was near enough to hear her words, they made him smile with pride.

" _Stalk me, Oliver, and I will kick your ass."_

She turned to look at him then, having gotten some distance from Laurier again. "At least we got the hammer."

"Yeah, but that's all we got."

"The cement floor in the basement?"

"Yeah," he nodded, "but no blood, no diatomaceous earth. We needed a trifecta, Bones. Physical evidence, murder weapon, crime scene…" The disappointment in his voice was clear, and she shared it. He dropped her off at the lab before heading back to Hoover to listen to his boss yell some more.

Not twenty minutes after he'd returned to his office building, however, his phone rang.

"Booth," he answered tiredly.

"Hey, it's Angela. Brennan just had some sort of bizarre epiphany about Ken Thompson and tropical fish? She told us to call you and tell you where she's going, but she didn't actually say where that was…"

"Tropical fish…?"

"Yeah, it was weird." But then it clicked, and he sat straight up in his chair in alarm.

"She left? Alone?" Angela must have heard the hint of panic in his voice.

"Yeah, what's going on-"

"I have to go." He grabbed his keys and bolted for the door, foregoing the elevator, and taking the stairs down two at a time as his feet screamed in protest.

Oliver Laurier had said something about Ken Thompson liking tropical fish, which lived in water filtered by diatomaceous earth, which had been found embedded in their victim's skull. And rather than let him handle it, she'd gone to the bastard's house alone.

 _Shit_.

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Booth had slammed the gear shift into park, leapt out of the car, and drawn his weapon at a run without conscious thought. He sprinted around the house, listening cautiously. The first thing he heard was a gunshot, and a cold panic washed over him. Then he heard her voice.

"Oliver, I understand you're here out of a misguided concern for my safety, but I apparently don't read people very well, and you could be in some kind of psychotic collusion with Ken. So I'm going to ask you to go over there and apply pressure to his wound until the police get here, you understand?

"Okay," he said with his hands in the air. "Okay. Did he kill Cleo?"

"Yeah, he did," Booth said, entering the room cautiously. He was relieved that Brennan was unharmed, but shooting someone wasn't an easy thing to wrap your mind around. He didn't want to startle her.

Brennan looked at him, confusion evident in her features. "The evidence says he did, but I don't know why."

"He did it to save his job."

"His job?" She glanced back at Ken, trying to understand his logic.

"Senator in a scandal; he'd lose the Beltway fast track. It's that simple. It's a tough town."

She looked back at Booth, shaking a bit and coming down from the rush of adrenaline.

"Yeah, it is a tough town."

"In the future… maybe I should do the shooting," he suggested lightly.

"Why? I'm a good shot."

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As Brennan paced slowly away from Cleo's funeral, she felt more than heard Booth's approach. He fell into step beside her and shot her smug little grin. She laughed in response.

"What?"

"Told you it wasn't the Senator," Booth gloated.

"And I told you it was, so we're even."

"Except...we work on the same cases, and _you_ end up on the New York Times Best Sellers List."

Her face lit up in surprise. "I didn't know that!"

"Number Three, with a bullet."

"That's good, right? The New York Times and a bullet…?"

Booth smiled indulgently and said, "It means you're rich: call your accountant."

Brennan laughed happily. "I don't have an accountant."

"Well, get one."

"Okay, how does that work?"

He rolled his eyes at her. "Ugh, you need to get out of that lab, you know? Watch TV, turn on the radio, anything. Pick up the phone and…" But he trailed off and looked back toward the funeral. Brennan followed his gaze, and they watched Cleo's parents lay roses on their daughter's coffin.

Booth looked back at her with approval. "You know, if it weren't for you, those people would have never known what happened to their daughter. That's got to be worse than knowing the truth."

She nodded somberly. "I know exactly how the Ellers felt about Cleo. My parents disappeared when I was fifteen, and nobody knows what happened to them." Her expression was guarded, and Booth realized what talking about her parents cost her emotionally. He wanted to return the favor.

"You know, being a sniper, I took a lot of lives. What I'd like to do before I'm done is try and catch at least that many murderers."

She missed the solemnity of his expression and laughed awkwardly. "Please...you don't think there's some kind of _cosmic balance sheet_ …" But she stopped as she realized he was perfectly serious, and she found her esteem for him grow even higher. "I'd like to help you with that."

He grinned his charm smile at her, and she smiled back as they walked side by side. _Partners._

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Over the following few days, Brennan reviewed and signed a contract with the FBI which identified her as their direct liaison in murder investigations as well as Booth's partner. Booth was accordingly designated as the FBI liaison to the Jeffersonian Medico-Legal lab, and they were each introduced to the Jeffersonian and FBI forensic units. Booth seemed to know nearly everyone on the FBI team by name, but Brennan had let the Jeffersonian team introduce themselves.

Brennan was eating lunch in her office with Angela, listening to her complain at length about her date the night before, when her phone rang.

"Brennan."

"Bones, hey! We've got a case, apparent suicide bomber in an SUV." He gave her the location, and she jotted it down. "I'll meet you at the corner, okay?"

"Okay, I'm on my way." She disconnected the call and looked back at Angela. "I need to go, Ange. We've got a crime scene." She paused speculatively, but then continued, "Do you want to come? I'm sure Zack could use some help documenting the scene."

"Really?"

"Of course. You're part of the team," she said, pulling off her lab coat and grabbing her bag. Angela followed her nervously, not entirely sure what she was getting herself into.

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 _This was a mistake_ , Angela thought. Her stomach churned at the sights and smells of the charred remains, scattered horrifically on the street and sidewalks. She watched in disgust as Brennan and Zack circled around the scene, discussing how best to remove the flesh that were seared to the metal. Her stomach rolled, and she desperately looked for something else to focus on. Her eyes fell upon Booth, who was watching Brennan studiously. _No surprise there_.

"You know, it's ok to be upset," he told Brennan sympathetically. She looked back at him sadly.

"I _wish_ this was the worst thing I'd seen," she replied. Booth's mind went back to the story she'd told him about El Salvador and wondered with foreboding what _else_ she might have seen in the course of her work. Brennan handed a red evidence bag to Angela, silently asking that she hold it open so Brennan could place a charred limb inside.

"You know…" she stuttered a bit, "I don't think I can. Sorry." Angela cringed away and retreated back behind the crime scene tape. Brennan handed the bag to Booth instead, but he didn't take it immediately.

"Well if you can't either…"

"No, I'm cool," he assured her, putting on his 'tough guy' face. Her eyes thanked him but looked concerned that he might pass out on her.

They catalogued the scene in painstaking detail before returning to the lab with the evidence. Angela had finally given up and decided to wait in the car, where she was far enough away that she couldn't see or smell anything.

Booth entered lab a few minutes into their preliminary examination of the remains and scowled at Hodgins' back. He was running his mouth again, and the expression on Brennan's face made it plain that she'd had enough.

"Jack! We're trying to work." Her voice cracked a little on the last word, and she looked away in embarrassment that her clinical facade had slipped for a moment. Booth stepped up onto the platform behind Hodgins as the man guilelessly called him a 'government stooge.'

He winked at Brennan quickly before addressing Hodgins, "You know, I don't enjoy having _squints_ on my team any more than you like having me on yours, but you know we're supposed to be working together. Ok?"

Brennan's eyes narrowed. _What was that supposed to mean?_ Was his wink meant to be construed as a show of trust? Was it flirtatious? Or was he simply indicating that he was about to make a statement he knew she wouldn't like, and he was reassuring her? _I really am terrible at reading people._ She resigned to ask him about it another time, however, because Agent Gibson was standing directly behind Booth. She recognized him as the same Homeland Security agent who'd done Booth the favor of accosting her at the airport. She listened as Booth introduced him.

"I'll try not to be in the way," Gibson said blandly.

"No…" Brennan argued, "We don't need to be overseen."

"That's not really your call, Bones." She thought his tone should be just a bit more apologetic. "Okay, so how soon can we get the DNA match?"

"That'll take days. I can get a match sooner than that; I have all we need."

Gibson spoke up, "You're going to be able to ID him...from that?" He gestured to the scraps of human remains on the exam table.

"Asking stuff like that is 'in the way,'" Zack said in slight irritation. If his boss was mad, he would be too.

Brennan began to walk toward the stairs, addressing Zack. "Remove any flesh and particulates you can and then macerate him." She turned a snide expression on Gibson. "If that's alright with you?"

Gibson stayed behind on the platform, but Booth followed Brennan to her office. Her steps were long and her pace quicker than usual.

"This is _my_ lab. I'm a scientist, a doctor."

"Yeah, so I've heard."

"Look, would you be able to do your job if someone is looking over your shoulder all the time?"

"You do, ok? I've developed a tolerance."

Brennan huffed and said, "I'm sorry, but I don't understand the advantage of compromise."

"It's a terrorist attack, Brennan. It's bigger than you, and it's bigger than me." She rounded on him as they reached her office door.

"The job is the same," she argued. _Analyze the evidence, solve the case, get the bad guy._

"No, it's not! We're dealing with someone here who devalues an entire culture. Terrorizing people by using God to justify mass murder." He was frustrated. _How could she not understand this?_

"You're making it personal. That doesn't help."

"It is personal, Brennan. All of us die a little bit on one like this." His expression grew reserved, and hers relented a bit. She thought of his experiences in the military and understood instinctively why he was reacting like this. Attacks on his country were a trigger. She had triggers of her own. Brennan gave a tiny nod of assent and considered that perhaps he was right.

"Anthropologically speaking, great tragedies do tend to unite societies in a common goal," she hedged. Booth grinned slightly.

"Is that your way of conceding the point, Bones?" His tone was a bit playful now. Brennan registered the renewed use of her nickname now that his mood was improving. She merely smiled at him and turned to walk into her office.

Booth and Gibson hung around the lab while they waited for the squints to process the evidence. A few hours had passed before Zack informed Brennan that the trace evidence had been removed successfully. Booth watched in disgust as Zack poured large containers of flesh-eating beetles onto the remains and asked what the hell he was doing.

"Flesh-eating beetles. It's how we clean the flesh off of burn victims," Brennan explained.

Booth groaned. _Just when he'd thought his stomach was handling this…_

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While they waited for the beetles to finish their work, Booth and Brennan interviewed the victim's wife and brother at the Hoover. Both insisted vehemently that Hamid Masruk was no terrorist, and they didn't appreciate the negative media attention the case was getting. Masruk's wife was denial that the victim was her husband, and she handed over his history and medical records so that Brennan could confirm or refute the man's identity.

Once she had retreated back to her office, she began to sift through the information the woman had given her. A soft knock drew Brennan's attention to the doorway where Angela stood, looking downcast.

"Look, I… I know that you needed help out there. At the crime scene. And I wanted to, but…"

Brennan moved to the couch and said "It's ok. You see it. I don't anymore. I don't know what's worse…"

"You holding up ok?" Angela asked as she sat beside her.

"His wife doesn't believe it was him. I've got to give her an ID."

Angela nodded. "Whatever I can do."

"Yeah I know."

"About this weekend…" Angela began.

"Ange, I don't know."

"Oh come on. I know this great club, they play Trip Hop and Trance…"

"I don't know what that means."

"It doesn't matter. We'll grab Booth…"

"No," Brennan said firmly.

"I think he likes you," Angela practically gushed. "God, if I were you, I would so buy a ticket on that _ride_." Brennan was uncomfortable. She certainly wouldn't mind making her relationship with Booth a bit more personal than professional, but she wasn't ready to 'girl talk' with Angela about it just yet. She decided to equivocate.

"Look, I'm busy this weekend even after the ID; I have these," she said, pointing to several boxes of skeletal remains.

"Remains from WWI," Angela said dryly.

"That's what the institution pays me for. I've got hundreds of these waiting."

"And they can't wait one more weekend?"

"They've got relatives," Brennan answered evasively. "They've waited long enough." Angela contemplated her for a moment with a tilt of her head.

"You know it's not that scary, Brennan. You have a few drinks. You move to the music. You might even smile."

Brennan wasn't sure how to respond to that, but thankfully she didn't have to. Zack interrupted with the news that the bones were clean, and she left her office to head to the Bone Room. As she and Zack studied the remains, Angela and Agent Gibson listened with interest. Brennan spoke into the voice recorder she held in her slender hand, confirming aloud that the victim's age, height, and ethnic origins correspond with those of Hamid Masruk.

Brennan drew Zack's attention to the evidence of malnutrition indicated by uneven growth patterns in the vertebrae.

"Consistent with the diet where Masruk was from," Zack agreed. "Probably evidence on the calvarium?"

"Why don't you reconstruct the skull and check it out?" Brennan said with a tiny smile toward her student.

Zack returned it with a wider smile of his own. "My first cranial reconstruction." He glowed a bit as he gathered the skull fragments on a tray and left the room.

Brennan looked back at the remains and continued to speak into her recorder.

"Evidence of multiple fractures to the bottoms of the feet, consistent with methods of torture used in Afghanistan and consistent with Masruk's medical history. I'm convinced. We have a statistical match." She turned off the recorder, and her gaze returned to the remodeled fractures on the cuboids and metatarsals. She repressed a shudder and tried not to think of another pair of feet which bore similar markings, as well as the man they belonged to.

Gibson looked confused. "So Masruk is the bomber."

"Yes."

"What about the skull? You're having the kid reconstruct it…"

Brennan grabbed the file and looked at him in irritation. "This is an educational institute. He wants to learn. Is that okay with you?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "For forensic ID, we have all we need. Now I would like to get this data to Booth as soon as I can."

Gibson stepped forward, hand outstretched. "I'll take it."

"No, I don't think so," she returned coolly. "I work with Booth. That's my deal."

"Dr. Brennan, I have jurisdiction," he argued.

"Then why don't I destroy my notes and let _you_ guarantee the identity of the remains." She smirked and brushed past him to leave the room.

Angela was holding back a grin with difficulty. She had noticed that Brennan had rhetorically asked for Gibson's approval several times throughout the day. _As if he has any say at all in how things are done in her lab._ Everyone but Gibson seemed to know it. She turned to the agent with a smile.

"It's best just to _ride it out_. Like an earthquake," she advised before leaving him alone in the room.

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Brennan hadn't realized how late it was until she got into her car and looked at the time glowing on the navigation screen. She chewed her lip for a moment, trying to decide whether or not it was too late to notify Booth of the ID or if she should just hold off until tomorrow. _I work late a lot of the time,_ she thought. _If this partnership is going to work, it's something he'll just have to get used to._ She dialed his number and listened as the call went to voicemail. She didn't leave a message, and she decided she'd just stop by his place on her way home. Though it wasn't really 'on her way' at all.

When he opened his door, her eyes widened and immediately focused on his torso. He was buttoning his dress shirt and his pants were undone. _Damn it_ , she thought in a panic. _Is he not alone?_ He greeted her in surprise and motioned her inside.

She wasted no time in saying what she came to say. She wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

"It's him. Masruk is the bomber." She handed him the file, looking uncomfortable.

"I guess the wife didn't know the husband very well." He continued to do up his shirt and looked at her expectantly.

"Actually, I was about to call you. Santana called me a few minutes ago, something about the bomb. I was on the phone with him when you called. I'm headed back to the Hoover, and I was going to see if you wanted to come with me." His tone was... _hopeful._ Perhaps she had misconstrued the situation. She was having a hard time focusing on his actual words, however, her thoughts seeming to slow as she watched his movements and admired his body.

Booth noticed, feeling mildly uncomfortable under her gaze but more than a little cocky. _Holy shit, she's checking me out_ , he thought gleefully. The sound of his zipper closing pulled Brennan out of her trance and brought a rush of heat to her face as well. She awkwardly agreed to go with him to the FBI headquarters, and she waited patiently as he put his shoes on and grabbed his keys.

After a few quiet moments in his SUV, she asked the question she'd been dying to ask since he first opened the door.

"You have a nice place," she complimented to start. "Do you live alone?" _Could he hear the apprehension in her voice? Ugh…_

Booth smiled a little in the darkness and answered knowingly, "Yeah, but I have my son on some weekends." He knew she was really asking if he was single.

She raised her eyebrows in surprise at his answer. "I didn't picture you having a child… Though I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised. How old is he?"

Booth's forehead wrinkled. "He's four… What do you mean you 'shouldn't be surprised?'"

"Because you display strong alpha-male traits which are consistent with the instinct for procreation," she answered succinctly in the matter-of-fact tone he had come to think of as her 'professor voice.'

Not sure he liked the way that sounded, he scowled and searched for the right words to convey his offense at the clinical view of his fatherhood. She noticed his expression and hurried to reassure him.

"It's perfectly natural, Booth."

He didn't know how to reply, and the silence stretched between them for a few moments until she spoke again.

"What's his name?" Her tone was hesitant, as though she might be thinking she had upset him somehow.

"Parker. I don't get to see him as much as I'd like, but…"

She smiled. It was a nice name. "Since you live alone, I assume you and his mother aren't together…"

Booth shifted uncomfortably. "No, we split up before Parker was born."

Brennan filed that information away and continued, "I'm sorry you don't get to see your son as often as you'd like. That must be very difficult."

He warmed a bit at the compassion he heard in her voice, but still felt he'd rather not talk about this right now. "It is," he replied shortly.

Brennan seemed to have finally understood that he was uncomfortable talking about his family life, so she switched topics to talk about the case, describing the details that had led her to confirm the Masruk's identity. In the back of her mind, however, she lingered on what he had told her, and she remembered the way he had opened up to her about his military experiences. Perhaps he would tell her more about his family another time.

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By the time they had exited the elevator onto his floor, they'd fallen into a somewhat awkward silence. She hoped she hadn't overstepped her boundaries, but she decided to leave things be rather than ask about it.

"Booth," Santana called, coming out of his office as they passed by.

"Yeah?"

"You got that ID?"

"Yeah, it was Masruk," Booth confirmed.

"Oh, that's too bad."

Brennan looked at the man in confusion. "He killed four people and injured another fifteen." Her tone made it clear that she didn't understand why the man's death would be considered a loss.

Santana handed a file to Booth. "The report came back from ballistics. The explosives were placed under the car with the trigger connected to the odometer. Masruk was murdered," he concluded grimly.

Brennan looked at the file in Booth's hands. "So Masruk wasn't a terrorist," she mused.

"Someone tried to make him look like one. Any leads on who did it?" Booth asked.

"That's why we're paying you, Booth," Santana replied and turned back toward his office.

Booth sighed and looked at Brennan. "Come on, Bones. Looks like we'll have to talk to the wife again tomorrow morning."

They returned to his place, where she had left her car. They said a quick goodbye, and Brennan drove home, replaying their earlier conversation in his car. _So he's definitely single_ , she thought with interest. But then she remembered how he had stayed with her, calmed her after her nightmare, traded horror stories about their pasts, and slept _in her bed_ next to her. She may not have been good at reading people, but she seemed to instinctively understand that Booth was the type of man who believed in monogamy. If he'd had a significant other, there was no way he would have done any of those things. She thought the concept of monogamy was unrealistic, but she had to admit at least to herself that the idea of monogamy with Booth was...intriguing.

She pulled into the parking garage connected to her building and recognized the car parked next to her space with a slight chill. It was Peter's car. She turned off the ignition, gathered her things quickly, and got out.

He was sitting in the driver's seat with the engine turned off. She flinched as they made eye contact, but Peter made no move to exit his vehicle. Brennan hurried to the elevator, locking her car with the remote, and avoiding Peter's cold stare.

When she entered her apartment, she knew immediately that he had been there again. A few things were slightly out of place, and her bedroom light was on when she was absolutely certain she'd turned it off before leaving that morning. She shuddered and took hold of the baseball bat that was still near the front door. She was glad at that moment that she hadn't gotten around to putting it away.

She slowly made her way through the apartment, checking every room to make sure she was truly alone. _What on earth could he have wanted this time?_ _Was he really that stupid to break in again after Booth had made a perfectly clear threat to his life should he even be seen close by?_ She sighed, having no answers.

As she lay in bed, chasing sleep, she considered whether or not she should tell Booth. She didn't want him to do anything that might get him into trouble at work, and she was pretty sure that shooting Peter would qualify. She recalled the deadly tone of his voice as he'd issued the threat, inches away from the terrified face of her ex. Brennan may not be able to read people under most circumstances, but she was absolutely certain that Booth had been serious.

Rolling over in bed, she decided that she would keep the information to herself for now. After all, no real harm had been done, even if she was 'creeped out,' as Angela would say. She would, however, say something to the security guards in the lobby on her way out tomorrow morning.

Placated by the thought, she closed her eyes and surrendered to her exhaustion.

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Brennan exited the elevator into the lobby of her apartment building the next morning and walked purposefully over to the security desk. The morning watchman greeted her warmly.

"Good morning, Dr. Brennan," the man said with a wide smile. He was in his mid-fifties and had a paternal quality that Brennan had always found comforting.

"Good morning, Jacob," she smiled back.

"And what can I do for you this fine morning?"

"I wanted to leave a name and a photograph with you." She handed him a photo she'd printed quickly before leaving her apartment and hastily wrote her ex's name across the back. "My ex and I separated a few months ago, and he's… taking it rather hard. He's picked my door locks a couple of times, and I wanted to make sure the security staff was familiar with him in case he comes back."

Jacob took the photograph from Brennan with a disconcerted expression. "Not to worry, Dr. Brennan. An Agent Booth from the FBI gave us this man's name and description last week. The staff has all been made aware of the situation, and the super ordered extra video surveillance on your floor. It's due to go in later this week, and we're to report any additional trouble to Agent Booth."

Brennan was taken aback by that news. "Agent Booth spoke to you about this?" Jacob nodded in clear approval of the man's protective actions. He was fond of Dr. Brennan, as was the rest of the staff. It was nice to know that someone as important as an FBI agent was watching out for her as well.

"Yup. We're on top of it, so don't worry. We reported the incident last week to the DC police, but I guess they haven't gotten in touch with you about it yet."

Brennan shook her head distractedly. "No. I wasn't even aware that Booth had spoken to anyone here." Her brow furrowed. She wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that. She was torn between irritation that he had taken such a liberty and gratitude that he had been focused on her safety yet again. The latter feeling was unfamiliar, but it made her feel good nevertheless. She turned to leave, but stopped, remembering something Jacob had said.

"It's not necessary to make any reports to Agent Booth, Jacob. He's my FBI partner and I can notify him of anything he needs to know. There's no need to trouble him further with any of this."

Jacob looked a little dubious but nodded in response and made of her instructions in the security log. Brennan thanked him and headed to her car. She didn't know how to bring it up with Booth, since she had decided not to tell him about Peter's reappearance last night. For now, she supposed, she should simply let it go.

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Her first stop was the Hoover that morning. Masruk's wife had come back for another interview and to be notified officially of her husband's death. The woman paced a bit near the door, clearly distraught.

"We're very, very sorry, Mrs. Masruk," Booth told her stoically.

"I told you Hamid was the victim, but you wouldn't listen. You couldn't imagine an Arab who was a peace-loving man," she accused.

"That's not true."

"No?" Her voice took on a mocking tone, "'We must investigate everything, Mrs. Masruk. We must turn your house upside down because we believe your husband was a good man.' Is that the truth?"

"No!" Brennan finally jumped in. "They searched your house because Muslim extremists have declared war on the United States. Preliminary findings made your husband a suspect, which we are required-"

"It's not Bureau policy to target or profile any ethnic group," Booth rushed to assure the woman. "It wasn't our intention. I can understand why you may have been offended."

"I can't," Brennan persisted.

"Bones!"

"What? She's been part of a criminal investigation, that's all. Her rights haven't been violated. It's unfortunate that her husband's ethnicity is a factor, but to say that it isn't would be disingenuous," she defended.

Booth gave a long-suffering sigh and addressed the victim's wife, "I'm going to have to apologize for Dr. Brennan."

Mrs. Masruk looked a bit calmer though and said, "It's fine, Mr. Booth. Honesty is always a welcome relief… So when can I bury him? When can I give him peace?"

Brennan answered promptly, but not unkindly, "There are certain body parts that I'm still examining. Others are still seared to the surface of the wreckage…" The other woman cringed slightly, and Booth intervened.

"I'm sure Mrs. Masruk doesn't really need to know the details."

"If I can retrieve more remains of her husband, Muslim law requires that I do," she insisted. Brennan turned to Mrs. Masruk and continued, "I spent some time in Iraq, identifying bodies. I'll give you whatever I can so that he can be purified for burial."

That remark sank in slowly with Booth as he finished the interview and the woman left. He experienced a mixture of curiosity and concern at the thought of what _that_ particular story might entail. He knew from experience how dangerous much of Iraq could be, and if she were there to work, it was pretty much guaranteed that she'd taken risks with her safety to be there. He grumbled to himself a bit as they left the Hoover to head to Wong Foo's.

Brennan heard his mumblings but chose not to respond. She supposed he was angry with her over her candor with the victim's wife, but she didn't feel ashamed or embarrassed. The woman had deserved the truth. Brennan walked slightly behind him as he shrugged into suit jacket. She repressed a hint of disappointment at his actions. He was wearing his shoulder holster today, and Brennan couldn't help but admire the way it complimented the broad span of his shoulders. She mentally shook herself and forced her thoughts back to the case.

A short time later, they were seated at the bar at Wong Foo's, arguing again.

"She was having an affair!" Booth insisted.

"I'm sorry, but that's an offensive assumption!"

"Well, all the signs are there," he replied stubbornly. They bickered heatedly back and forth for several minutes before Brennan reached her limit.

"Ugh! You are an insufferable... _arrogant_...man!" She was flustered and the words came out unevenly.

"Oh! So only a woman could know a woman. I thought women wanted us to understand them." He seemed to be enjoying himself, she noticed with irritation.

Angela had been sitting at a table when they came in, but they had both been too caught up in each other to notice. She had sat there watching them speculatively. It _looked_ like they were fighting, but anyone could see that the heat of their discussion was sexually charged. Their body language practically screamed it. Wanting to observe a bit more, Angela walked over to sit on the other side of Booth. He turned to her impatiently, assuming she was there to take Brennan's side.

"This is a private conversation."

"I'm not here," Angela replied with an expression of surrender. But it took her no time to tell Brennan that she actually agreed with Booth's take on the wife's situation. This did nothing to help Brennan's frustration, and she finally stood up.

"Alright. Great. I will be in the lab, getting us some _real_ data," she said waspishly before leaving.

 _Damn it,_ Booth thought with a surge of guilt. Now she would skip another meal, because of him, and he was sure she hadn't had breakfast that day. He resolved to talk her into dinner with him later so that they could reconcile, and he could make sure she got _some_ thing in her stomach that day.

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Brennan's mood didn't improve as she got back to work with Zack and Hodgins, but she quickly talked them past the hurdle that they'd reached in interpreting the evidence. Hodgins grumbled as she left the platform that even with his impressive credentials and capabilities, Brennan still had the ability to intimidate him.

Booth found her in her office a short while later and told her that they had an appointment to speak to the victim's brother again at his home. She agreed silently, and they both elected not to take the conversation back to their previous argument. They arrived at the man's apartment, each trying to watch the other without being caught.

The victim's brother, Farid, reluctantly informed them that his sister-in-law had been having an affair with a man named Ali Ladjavardi. Booth and Brennan exchanged loaded glances. His was slightly smug, while hers was frustrated. If there was anything Brennan despised, it was being proven wrong.

The conversation turned to the man's medical condition, something Brennan had immediately noticed the victim had in common with his brother. Farid agreed to give her access to his medical records, claiming that he would do anything to be helped.

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Angela stood on the platform telling Hodgins and Zack about her lunch entertainment. She was sure now that Booth 'had a thing' for Brennan, and she was eager to discuss it.

"But she says she's not interested," Hodgins pointed out.

"'Methinks the lady doth protest too much,'" she returned in a sing-song voice.

"Maybe she protesteth just enough," Zack said a bit sensitively.

"Puh- _lease_. She's been sleeping alone for months. She has enough pent up sexual energy to power a small-midwestern city."

Hodgins tried to direct the focus back to the evidence, but Angela wasn't interested. She retreated back to her office to contemplate the best way to encourage her friend to give Booth a chance.

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Booth had tracked down Mrs. Masruk's lover, and the man now sat on the opposite side of the table while Brennan watched from behind the two-way mirror. He admitted to the affair but hotly denied killing Masruk, and before Booth could get much further with him, Santana interrupted the interrogation and let the man go.

"What the hell was that all about? He was a prime suspect!" Booth fumed.

"He's mole for Homeland Security," Santana explained angrily. "They planted him in the Arab-American friendship league."

"He admitted the affair."

"Maybe, but Homeland Security says he's clean. They do not want his cover blown."

"But, Sir…"

"Do I look like I'm discussing this?" Santana asked in irritation. He left the room, and Brennan winced behind the glass as Booth put his fist into a wall.

His mood only seemed to worsen as they rode together back to the lab. He honked the horn and shouted at other drivers, refusing to return Brennan's gaze.

"Do you want me to drive?" Brennan offered.

"No, why?"

"You're angry," she answered as though it should be obvious.

Booth laughed darkly, "I'm not angry."

"You're furious. You're going to kill somebody," she said, gesturing to the road.

"I'm not angry. Believe me, you do not want to see me angry. That's the last thing you want to see." This comment brought to mind the look on his face as he had threatened Peter the week before.

"Ok," she said.

"This is me, accepting reality."

"Ok, my mistake," she said, placating now.

"My superiors, they make the decisions, Bones. Alright? If they don't think them through, that's really not my problem."

"If I were you, I'd be mad. Homeland Security is preventing you from doing a proper investigation of a murder case."

"I'm a grownup," he replied a bit dejectedly. "I'll deal… You know that thing where you ask for the strength to change the things that you can and the wisdom to know the difference?"

"Not really."

"Well, it's a good thing." She didn't respond immediately.

"Who do you ask?"

"For what?"

"For the strength and the wisdom?"

"God," Booth said hesitantly.

"And that works?"

 _Not today_ , Booth thought sullenly. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Sure… Parker?"

His eyebrows raised in surprise. "You want to talk about Parker?"

"Why not?"

"Nothing, it's just… my time with his was cancelled this coming weekend, and I'd really rather not think about it right now."

"Oh… I'm sorry," she said delicately.

"I prefer if we just stay on point and talk about things _you_ like to talk about, like dead people. Dead bodies?"

"Sure, sure. You've killed a lot of people, right? When you were a sniper?"

He threw her an exasperated look. "Maybe we shouldn't talk at all."

"Right, cause you're angry."

"Not angry. I'm not."

She sighed in regret that she had unintentionally offended him again. She placed a hand on his arm in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture.

"We'll find out who killed him, Booth. We've got Hamid's body," she said, removing her hand and turning to look forward again. "You can always count on the dead."

The place on his arm where she had touched him still felt warm, and he looked at her with interest. Booth wondered then if dead people were the only ones she let herself count on.

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He dropped Brennan off at the entrance to the Jeffersonian and went to park the car. As she exited the vehicle, she glanced back at him and saw him trying not to smile.

"What?"

"Oh, I was just thinking that I'm surprised your independent feminist thing allows for me dropping you off at the door," he grinned playfully at her.

She chuckled warmly. "Well when you spend _your_ workdays in heels, I'll be happy to drop you off at the door too." She winked at him, and Booth felt his insides melt. She shut the door and walked away from him. He watched her until she had disappeared through the entrance, then pulled away from the curb with a goofy smile still lighting his features. Even as clumsy as she was with conversation, she had managed to lighten his foul mood. The thought made him grin just a bit wider.

Brennan had similar thoughts as she walked through the glass doors to the lab and toward the platform. She had seen the change in his mood, and she couldn't help but wonder if it had been her doing. She hoped so.

She slid her access card through the reader and climbed the steps to the platform. Brennan discussed the case with Zack and Hodgins briefly, before Angela came bounding up the stairs to stand next to her.

"Where's Booth, Sweetie?"

"He should be here in a minute," Brennan replied distractedly, still analyzing the evidence.

"So you get any action yet?" Angela asked her suggestively.

"No!" Brennan sputtered in surprise that she would bring this up in front of the others. " _No._ "

"Even if you have nothing in common, it's difficult to sublimate physical attraction…" Zack said, his eyes determinedly averted. "And we hear it's been a while."

"Okay, STOP," Brennan told them.

"Ugh, he is there for the _taking_ , Honey."

Brennan opened her mouth to scold her again, but Booth's voice reached her as he climbed the steps to join them.

"Okay, I couldn't get his medical records…" He stopped as he registered that the squints had all turned to look at him with a range of expressions. He was perplexed. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," Brennan answered quickly. Booth was even more intrigued by the new blush in her cheeks. He wished with chagrin that he hadn't immediately announced his presence. It didn't take a trained investigator to know they'd been talking about him. Brennan met his eyes and pursed her lips in a way that didn't quite conceal the smile she was fighting.

They refocused their attentions on the case and decided that the beetles used to deflesh the victim would need to be sacrificed to obtain trace evidence they ingested. Some time later, Brennan pulled Angela aside and implored her as quietly as she could to stop talking about Booth.

"Come on, Bren. It's just a friendly 'nudge.' That's what friends are for. He likes you; it's obvious."

"Please, Angela," Brennan said with a hint of desperation in her tone. It was hard enough trying to decipher what was going on between them without Angela's constant commentary. Her friend sighed and left the platform with a knowing smile, making no promises.

Brennan's attention was caught by Booth's conversation with Zack regarding his attempt to reconstruct the bomb, but before she could defend Zack's actions, Hodgins shouted that he'd found the evidence they needed to track the bomb and the bomb-maker. The victim and his brother had been poisoned. Suspicions rose again about Mrs. Masruk's lover, Ladjavardi, and Booth rushed Brennan out of the lab with his hand again at the small of her back.

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"I thought you were told to stay away from him," she asked in slight confusion. They watched from the SUV as the man in question walked down the sidewalk slightly ahead of them.

"Yeah, and as an FBI agent, I cannot disobey my superior. But _you're_ not an FBI agent." He grinned mischievously at her, and she understood what he wanted her to do. They exited the car simultaneously, and Brennan ran to catch up with Ladjavardi.

Booth watched as she argued with the man and told him what information she needed from him. But Ladjavardi wasn't in the mood to cooperate, and he made the mistake of reaching out to grab Brennan's shoulder and move her out of his way. Within seconds, she had flipped him over to land flat on his back against the pavement. She placed her boot threateningly against the man's trachea and didn't notice the proud expression on Booth's face as he watched her. The man gave her the answer she wanted, which effectively absolved him of the crime, and Brennan let him go.

As they walked back to the car, Booth can't help but notice how completely at ease she seems to be with her actions. He is undeniably turned on by her behavior, but he is a bit troubled as well. Booth thought of Peter again and wondered just how often she had to resort to physical defense with men. He got the feeling that she had no idea that it wasn't normal.

Brennan noticed his expression finally and wished, not for the first time, that she was better at reading people. He almost looked… _aroused_. As they theorized back and forth in the car, he threw out ideas, and she refuted them with logic and what he mentally referred to as her 'five dollar words.' Their banter _did_ arouse him, she realized. And Brennan had to admit, at least to herself, that she was no less affected by it. _By him._

The sound of her phone ringing demanded her attention then, and she spoke to Hodgins quickly. He informed her that the bomb had most likely been built in the home of the victim's brother, and she quickly directs Booth to head in that direction.

The man's apartment was empty, and once inside, they quickly found evidence that the man had made another bomb and planned to use it that very day. Brennan called Angela and spoke rapidly into the phone, explaining that they need to figure out where the most logical place for a suicide bomber to target today. To their mutual relief, Angela came through, and within minutes Booth pulled the SUV to a stop outside of an event center hosting a peace conference. Booth hurriedly called for backup as he and Brennan ran into the building.

There was no sign of Farid yet, and both of them felt their adrenaline peak. At any moment, a bomb could level the entire building, killing hundreds, including themselves.

"If you see him, will you shoot?" Brennan asked, stress clearly evident in her voice.

"Well, he might not have the bomb," Booth hedged.

"You don't believe that?"

"I'm not taking out a target, Brennan, unless I'm sure."

"Is that how you make it easier? Calling him a target?" _This_ was something she could understand: compartmentalizing to do a job.

"You know, you picked a really odd time to have this conversation," he said with a groan.

Suddenly, Brennan was pointing at a man who was walking in the opposite direction, below the balcony they were standing on.

"Booth!"

"Farid," he said, trying to get a better look at the man through narrowed eyes.

"There! That's Farid!"

"I'm not sure," Booth said hesitantly.

"Look, his walk is labored from the dioxin poisoning, and the parietal bones in his skull match his picture."

"What if you're wrong?"

"This is what I _do_ , Booth. Do you really want to wait?" Brennan looked down at the man again and continued, "He's carrying something heavy in his camera bag, see the extra weight is causing his shoulder to-"

"No, I can't!"

"He has all the markers, Booth."

"I need a face. I need a face," he said tensely.

Brennan made a split-second decision and shouted, "Farid!"

Instinctively, the man turned to look for the source, and he spotted Booth with his gun aimed directly at him.

"On the ground!" Booth warned him. But Farid reached quickly into the bag and prepared to trigger the bomb.

"He's going for the bomb," Brennan told him urgently.

Booth's bullet pierced the man's skull, and the atrium was filled with screams of alarm. Agents on the ground level confirmed that the man had indeed been preparing to detonate a bomb, and Booth felt a sad relief wash through him. Beside him, he noticed that Brennan seemed to be in a bit of shock from the adrenaline, and he placed his hand on her lower back in support to lead her back downstairs and out of the building.

"Dinner?"

She looked at him in mild surprise but nodded in assent.

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 **Thanks for reading! I really hate the way they sprung Parker's existence on Brennan in the show and made it look like Booth had been hiding him. So I fixed it.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thank you, thank you, thank you for your kind words and encouragement! This is the first creative writing I've done in 8 or 9 years, and I've realized how much I really missed it. Right now I have over 50K words written on this story, and it's still just pouring out of me. Replies to guest reviews are on my profile page, but I think I replied to all the others. If I missed you: THANK YOU for reading and reviewing!**

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Chapter 4

Brennan sat next to Booth at the bar in Wong Foo's, trying to understand why he had declined any recognition for stopping the bombing.

"But it would be a Rose Garden ceremony… That's an honor, right? I thought you FBI guys loved your medals?" Brennan asked in consternation.

"There's no pleasure in taking someone's life," Booth answered soberly. "Nothing to celebrate."

Brennan smiled and touched his arm, finally encouraging him to meet her eyes. "You saved so many people, Booth. Don't forget that."

Booth smiled back at her and thought that he could easily get used to the feel of her hands on him.

"You want to have another drink?" Booth asked her softly.

"Thanks, but I'm going to head back to the lab for a little while. I have some things I need to finish up."

"Oh come on, Bones. It's late, and you've got to be exhausted. Why not just pick things up where you left off tomorrow, huh?"

Brennan smiled, but shook her head stubbornly. "No, I really want to get it done tonight." He gave her a pleading look, and she went on, "I have a couch in my office in case I get tired."

Booth resisted the urge to push the issue and merely nodded in chagrined acceptance. She smiles at his surrender, touched that he let her have her way in the matter. Brennan stood, leaned over to kiss his cheek, and left the bar with a breathy, "See you." Booth swallowed thickly and automatically touched his fingers lightly to the place her lips had touched him. He ignored Sid's smug expression and ordered another drink.

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 _What had possessed her to do that?_

Brennan was puzzled at her own behavior as she strolled through the sliding glass doors, gave a silent nod to the security guard, and moved toward her office. She did actually have work she could do, but her thoughts were suddenly full of Booth, and she found herself too distracted to work effectively.

She _was_ tired, she conceded to herself. But the thought of going home made her nervous. It was well past dark now, and the memory of Peter watching her in the parking garage sent a tremor down her spine. She hadn't told Booth about the encounter or the fact that she was pretty sure Peter had broken in again. Brennan knew it was petty, but she felt like talking to him about Peter again would be akin to admitting that she was afraid of the man. And she wasn't, not _really_. She knew that she could defend herself, but the fact remained that Peter had gotten the jump on her not once, but twice in the time she had known him. It was unlike her to be taken by surprise in a physical altercation, and she was irritated with herself over it.

Brennan elected to sleep on the couch in her office that night, reasoning to herself that she'd had a drink with dinner and should be at her best in case there _was_ a confrontation of some sort. She was sure that she was just being silly, and she was even more sure that if she called Booth and discussed her concern he'd be inviting himself over for another slumber party.

Brennan allowed her mind to play on that particular scenario as she drifted to sleep with an involuntary smile on her face…

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One morning a few days later found Booth, Brennan, and Zack trekking through a wooded area on the grounds of the Hanover Preparatory School. Booth had been in a foul mood on the drive, primarily because he'd been looking forward to spending the 45-minute drive alone with Brennan, but somehow Zack had ended up tagging along. He resented the intrusion, especially since the kid seemed incapable of keeping his conversation to appropriate topics. Meaning-topics that didn't make Booth want to shoot him.

What he really wanted was the freedom to observe Brennan without the kid noticing. For one thing, she was wearing another one of _those_ shirts today, and he was having a lot of difficulty resisting the urge to watch as her breasts bounced a bit with her movements. His mouth had watered so many times that more than once, Booth had surreptitiously checked it for leaks.

He had also noticed that she seemed to be slightly out of sorts as well. He'd wanted to ask her what was wrong, but he had known that she wouldn't say anything personal around Zack. So he had resigned to endure the trip with as much grace as possible.

Ironically, Brennan had spent most of the drive trying to figure out what was bothering _him_. It was a welcome distraction from her own troubled thoughts. She had seen Peter again as she'd left for work that morning, this time parked across the street from her apartment building, and still watching her intently. It perturbed her that she couldn't understand the motivations behind his behavior. If she could figure that out, then it would be easier to predict his next behavior pattern. But it simply eluded her. If Peter was going to harm her, wouldn't he have done it already? He had broken into her home twice, so what was stopping him from doing it while she was there if he really wanted to talk to her?

 _Perhaps he has tried_ , she thought grimly. She hadn't allowed herself to sleep at the lab again since the night they had stopped Farid Masruk from detonating his bomb. But each night, she had verified that she was alone in her apartment as soon as she got home, and then she had wedged a doorstop behind the closed door. She had tested it, and even pulling with all of her strength, she was unable to open the door with the tool in place. It was the only way she had been able to sleep at all. She hadn't heard any attempts to push the door open, but she supposed it was possible that Peter might have tried while she was in the deeper stages of sleep…

She still hadn't told Booth, and she knew that he would be angry at her for that, if he ever did find out what was going on. But she simply couldn't bring herself to admit her weakness to him. He needed a strong partner, and that was what she was going to be.

Arriving finally at the crime scene, Brennan gazed upward at the decomposed corpse that hung from a large tree.

"Video first," she instructed Zack. "I don't want your flash disturbing the crows."

A voice behind her commented snidely, "Yeah that would be a shame. Disturb the flesh-eating birds."

Booth looked in annoyance at the man as well as the other bystanders who had gathered to observe. "You want to increase the perimeter here? Gentlemen, give my forensic anthropologist some room."

" _Your_ forensic anthropologist?" Brennan asked in amusement. She tried to ignore the satisfaction his words had given her.

Booth shrugged roguishly and continued to discuss the incident with the local sheriff and the head of security at the prep school while Brennan and Zack catalogued the scene. As she studied the corpse from the ground, she saw the head begin to separate from the body. She caught the head easily and looked to Booth.

"We're going to need an evidence bag," she told him.

"Heads up!" Booth warned, as the rest of the body crashed to the ground.

"We're going to need a bigger bag," Brennan replied dryly.

The onlookers blanched in disgust, and although Booth was no less sickened by all of it, he couldn't help but feel a touch of pride at Brennan's unruffled demeanor. This was an ugly job, and he'd never known anyone who could handle it like she could.

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They solved the case with almost dizzying speed. Their victim, Nestor Olivos, had been murdered by his roommate and the girl he loved. It was a mess of sex, lies, and blackmail, and both Brennan and Booth were extremely glad it was over. They had argued several times throughout the case, and both of them were feeling slightly guilty over things they had said.

The day after they closed the case, Booth suggested that they do the final paperwork together at his place. He ordered some takeout, and they sat conversing pleasantly and fighting over cartons of chinese food for several hours. Every so often, their hands would touch as he passed her a document that needed her signature, or she handed him lab reports for the file. Each time, there was almost a tangible spark that arced between them, and it was getting difficult to keep avoiding eye contact.

"I should probably get going," Brennan said a bit reluctantly. "I have an early meeting tomorrow morning."

Booth was disappointed too, but didn't argue. "Ok. Thanks for helping with the paperwork. It feels like it went faster than usual." He gave her a warm smile and helped her gather her things.

"You're welcome. It does seem logical to complete the paperwork formalities together, so that we can make sure the information corroborates appropriately." She returned a shy smile of her own before moving toward his front door.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow?" Booth asked in a hopeful tone. He cringed a bit, praying she hadn't heard it.

She had. "Sure. Maybe… maybe we can have lunch? If you're not busy, of course." _What was she doing? That sounded like she was asking him out,_ Brennan thought in embarrassment.

"That sounds great!" And his lips were curved in a smile that was just for her. She'd never seen him look at anyone else like that.

"Ok," she grinned back. "See you."

After the door clicked shut, Booth leaned his forehead against it and told himself not to get too excited. It was just lunch. _But it was her idea_ , he thought happily. And with that, he flipped off the lights and got ready for bed.

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Brennan was feeling similarly giddy as she drove home. She wasn't sure what had possessed her to ask him to lunch, but the heart-stopping smile he had given her as he accepted the invitation was imprinted on her mind like a tattoo. She smiled to herself in the darkness as she pulled into her parking garage.

She found herself checking automatically for signs of Peter. His persistence was unnerving, and she had felt herself beginning to pay more attention to the people around her than she used to. Tonight, however, he seemed to have found something better to do.

 _Scratch that,_ she thought grimly, as her eyes fell upon his vehicle parked several spaces down the next row. If she hadn't been looking for him, she probably wouldn't have noticed him at all. As had become his habit, he didn't move to leave his car or call out to her. He merely watched. She wondered fretfully if he had broken into her apartment again as well. The new security camera on her floor had been up and running for about a week now, and the security staff had assured her that they would notify her immediately if Peter attempted to break in again.

She repressed a shudder and took the elevator to her apartment. She suddenly felt drained, and she missed the capricious energy she'd had just a few minutes earlier. Her lock didn't seem to have been tampered with, she noted as she unlocked the door and stepped inside. Again, she checked each room, and again, they were clear of any threat.

As she readied herself for bed, Brennan mentally bounced back and forth between happy thoughts about Booth and concern that she was growing too attached to him. Her track record with men wasn't exactly a positive one, and she knew all too well that the level of affection she permitted herself to feel for another person was directly congruent with their capacity to hurt her. She was being ridiculous, she knew that. Their partnership was certainly worth more than whatever temporary satisfaction they would gain from having sex. Brennan shook herself inwardly and frowned at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. The last thing she should be thinking about right now, or ever, was sex with Seeley Booth. Their lunch tomorrow needed to be just that: lunch. Innocent. Something partners do.

She slept fitfully that night, waking herself from a nightmare more than once. But each time she rolled over and tried to fall asleep again, she found herself remembering the comforting feel of Booth's arms around her. She wondered wistfully if she would ever be lucky enough to feel them again.

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Brennan was awake at sunrise the next morning. Or rather, after her last nightmare several hours before dawn, she had simply stopped trying to sleep. There had been much that her conscious mind had been determined to ignore lately, and it seemed that her _sub_ conscious mind was taking the opportunity of her sleep to throw it all right back in her face. Rationally, she knew it didn't happen quite like that, but it was the nearest she would willingly come to psycho-analyzing herself.

As usual when she needed a distraction, Brennan opted to work. She answered a few emails, primarily from colleagues wanting her professional assistance in one way or another, but there was also one from her publicist, insisting she make time for a television interview. She groaned as she read the woman's message. Even in her written words, she came across as bubbly and exhausting. Brennan didn't reply to the request but closed her laptop and decided to get ready for the day.

She chose her wardrobe more carefully than she felt like admitting, with her mind on her lunch date with Booth. _Ugh, not a date. Just lunch_ , she chided herself. She opted for a low cut top that was more crimson than burgundy, a flowy black skirt, and a belt to accent her hips. She rarely wore skirts, especially since she had started working with Booth again. They weren't exactly appropriate crime scene attire. But it felt right today, so she compensated for her frivolity by tossing a pair of dark jeans into her bag.

She was nearly ready when a knock sounded at the front door. Puzzled as to who would be at her door first thing in the morning, she approached it a bit hesitantly, her mind running through the possibilities. Any deliveries would be taken by security downstairs. She didn't know many of her neighbors well enough to think it might be one of them. And if it was Peter, she doubted he'd knock after having proven that a locked door was no obstacle.

She didn't have a peephole, and she thought answering the door with her gun in her hand was probably a bit extreme. She settled for the baseball bat instead and inched the door open. Relief and amusement at herself flooded her, and she opened door fully.

It was Booth. Holding coffee.

"Mornin' Bones!"

She let the name slide and instead asked, "Did we agree to coffee last night? I thought we said lunch…"

"We did, but I was getting coffee from my favorite place this morning, and it's not far from here, so… here I am." His smile was infectious. "Gonna let me in?"

"Of course, sorry," she said distractedly. He was looking very good this morning. And he certainly appeared to have slept better than she had. She moved aside to let him in, then closed the door behind him. He caught sight of her putting the bat back into place near the front door and scowled.

"Expecting trouble?" Booth asked with wary concern.

"No, I just couldn't figure out who would be knocking at this hour." She smiled, hoping to reassure him.

"Hmm. Well I did notice that you don't have a peephole, Bones. You should ask your super to put one in. Or I can do it, if you want," he offered.

"I'll think about it." His comment about consulting her super had reminded her of something else. "By the way, speaking to the security staff here was really unnecessary. I ended up doing so myself." Her expression was somewhat scolding, but Booth didn't regret his actions in the slightest.

"Uh huh. And when did you get around to doing that?" Booth asked knowingly. Brennan didn't reply but opted to roll her eyes playfully and turn back toward the bedroom. Telling him when she'd talked to security would probably make him realize that there had been a separate incident that prompted her to do it at all. She didn't feel like having that particular conversation this morning.

"I'll be out in just a minute, I'm almost ready," she told him, and she disappeared back down the hallway.

Booth watched as she retreated and pulled in a heavy breath. He did, actually, have a bit of an ulterior motive for showing up with coffee. For one, he really hadn't wanted to wait until lunch to see her, and the beautiful expression of surprise when she had opened the door was very gratifying. When he got a glimpse of her wardrobe choices this morning, he felt even more pleased that he'd listened to his instinct see her sooner rather than later. Her clothing hugged her curves deliciously, and seeing her in a skirt reminded him of the day they'd met. She'd been wearing a skirt then as well, but what he had really noticed first were her eyes. It had been difficult to pay attention to what she was saying for many reasons, the least of which perhaps was her clothing. Her eyes, her voice, her smile...they had captivated him that day. Today was no different.

He shifted uncomfortably, feeling his body respond to his wayward thoughts. As he tried to get himself under control, she emerged from the bedroom again, fastening her earrings beneath her soft hair. She had added another of her large necklaces, but it moved around enough that it did very little to hide the cleft between her breasts.

She crossed the living room and started to pull on her boots. Booth's mouth went dry as he watched her zip them. She seemed to be talking, but his brain wasn't processing things properly.

"Booth?"

"Sorry, what?" He snapped out of his Bones-induced stupor to see her looking at him curiously.

"I asked if we are still on for lunch or if coffee was your way of canceling tactfully."

"No! Of course not."

"No you can't have lunch or no you're not canceling?" Brennan asked in amusement.

"No I'm not canceling on you. I just thought you should try the coffee from this place," he said, finally handing her the to-go cup. She sipped it experimentally and smiled at him. Not only was it very good coffee but it was made the way she liked it.

"It is very good, thank you."

As they left her apartment and headed to his SUV, she asked, "How did you know how I like my coffee?"

Booth shrugged and grinned at her cheerfully. "I pay attention, Bones. I'm not a _Special_ Agent for nothing, you know."

She rolled his eyes at him and sipped her coffee again, surveying him discreetly. He never wore a seatbelt, she noted. Brennan knew that it was a common habit among veterans, but it bothered her nonetheless. She didn't want to think of something happening to him. She nearly opened her mouth to chastise him for it but decided that perhaps now wasn't the time. They were having a good morning, and she didn't want to irritate him. The tension of their most recent case was still in the back of her mind, and while she enjoyed their good-natured bickering, there were some comments that had bordered on hurtful. She had no desire to dampen their current mood.

Booth noticed her scrutiny and squirmed a bit. He was pleased that she seemed to enjoy looking at him as much as he enjoyed ogling her, but he also worried that she might notice his arousal. Leaving her apartment for the fresh air of a beautiful morning had done little to distract him from her. If anything, he felt energized. And the heat of her gaze only amplified his arousal further.

It wasn't until they had arrived at the lab that he remembered the other reason he had surprised her with coffee this morning. He'd been trying to butter her up. Booth had been handed an out-of-state case this morning which required her special kind of expertise, and he'd had a feeling Brennan wouldn't be too excited about having to leave town on such short notice.

As they waited for the elevator, he decided to take his chances.

"Hey Bones, I just remembered… I was asked to have you take a look at this," he said, handing her the file. They entered the elevator, and she pulled out an enlarged photograph. It was a decomposed hand.

"Looks human to me…"

She studied it while walking through the lab toward her office, and he followed close behind. Perhaps a little too close. Because she paused unexpectedly in the doorway to her office, and he walked right into the back of her. She turned and gave him a look that was both curious and flirtatious.

Brennan was 100% sure that she had just felt his hardness against her rear end, and it was all she could do to focus on the photo in her hands. If she were anywhere else, he were any _one_ else, she'd have turned around and pressed her body _and_ lips against his that very instant. As it were, however…

"What's the deal?" He stared at her in disbelief. She couldn't really mean what he thought she meant… "With the hand," she added with a smirk.

"It was found in Eastern Washington state."

"Where?"

"Inside a bear."

"No, I mean… _Inside a bear?_ " Brennan asked. The file had her genuine interest now.

"An autopsy revealed more bone fragments in the bear's stomach and intestine."

"An autopsy on a bear is called a _necropsy_ ," she answered smoothly, putting a few things on the coffee table.

"Yeah, it's pretty crucial we get that straight right off the bat," he replied jokingly. "Meanwhile, about the dead human being…"

"What do you need me for? The bear ate somebody."

"Twenty-six bone fragments in total, case got bumped to the Seattle field office, they bumped it to me. Check it out," he said, handing her a USB flash drive. She took it from him with a smug expression.

"Why'd they bump it to you?" Brennan asked, already knowing the answer.

"Bones, do you really care about the inner-workings of the FBI?"

"They bumped it to you because you work with _me_ ," she said with a sexy smile. He was powerless not to return it with one of his own.

"No, they hoped you could help ID the body."

"From a hand?" Brennan asked as she opened the file on her computer.

"Yeah, they have high expectations," he answered. She thought again of what she'd felt when he'd bumped into her and thought cheekily that _she_ had high expectations as well.

"Definitely human… opposable thumb, probably male from the size… Uh oh."

"What?" He walked around her desk to get a better look and tried _very_ hard not to look down her shirt.

"Kerf marks. Made from a cutting tool."

"Maybe when they cut open the bear?"

"No," she said, staring intently at the screen. "It's not a straight edge. Residual cross section stria." She pointed to the screen to indicate the markings in question.

"Just because you say it in that definitive tone doesn't mean that it means anything to me," he told her, gazing at the screen in veiled disgust.

"These marks were made from a saw. The hand was completely separated from the rest of the person when the bear at it."

"Somebody was dismembered… and fed to a bear."

"That's one possibility," she replied. She noted that he looked a little green.

"Whooo, k…. Um…. Thanks, Bones."

"Glad I could help." She handed the flash drive back to him.

"But, you're not done," he said with a forced smile and walked back around her desk.

"I'll check out the photographs and x-rays and see if I can confirm sex and age," she offered.

"Pack your bags, Bones. We're going to Washington state." The tension in his voice belied his smile. She looked up at him in disbelief at his announcement.

"I'm not going to Washington state."

"Again, just because you say it in that definitive tone doesn't mean it means anything to me." He smiled charmingly at her, tossing the flash drive in the air and catching it.

Her mouth fell open for a moment as she watched him, but then she squared her shoulders and left her office. He didn't follow this time. _Wise man_.

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She tracked Goodman down on the catwalk that overlooked the lab.

"Why is Booth the one who decides we go to Washington state? He gets the gun and the authority; he's the one that people like." She could hear the sulky quality in her voice but decided to ignore it.

"Firstly, he didn't decide that you go to Washington state, he made a request. I am the one who decides where you go or do not go."

"And secondly?"

"Secondly, it's time to live a little, Temperance. Connect with other people," Goodman encouraged.

Her eyebrows shot up. "Are you suggesting I take this opportunity to have sex with Booth on a field trip?" It certainly wasn't the first time _that_ particular thought had crossed her mind.

"Good God, where is Dr. Freud when you need him?"

"I don't understand what you're saying."

"Which is precisely why I am sending you to the Great North Woods," Goodman told her exasperatedly. "Come on now, you've got partially digested, dismembered skeletal remains to examine. That should put a smile on your face..."

She groaned inwardly at the thought of spending so much time in close proximity to Booth. It wasn't going to make her efforts to ignore her attraction any easier. She stalked back to her office, and pursed her lips at the sight of Booth still sitting there. He smiled indulgently at her.

"All squared away?"

"I don't know what that means," she replied dryly.

"Nevermind. Flight leaves in…" he glanced at his watch, "three hours. I guess you need to go home and pack?" The smug expression on his face pushed her beyond her limit.

"Exactly when did you find out about this case, Booth? Couldn't you have told me about it this morning when you showed up unannounced at my apartment with what I am now sure was bribe coffee?"

He had the good grace to look abashed. "Look, I'm sorry. They sprung it on me early this morning, and I did mean to tell you before you left home, I just…" he trailed off, realizing that he couldn't exactly tell her the reason for his distraction. But apparently she didn't need an explanation.

Brennan sighed in resignation and shook her head. Booth took that to mean he was off the hook, mostly.

"Do you need a ride back home so you can get your things together?" Booth offered.

"No, I'll take a cab," she replied stubbornly. He wanted to argue but wisely held his tongue.

"Okay, well… Here's the flight information. I'll meet you at the gate?" He handed her an envelope containing an itinerary and airline ticket.

"Okay," she nodded. And he smiled once more in her direction before he left. She let him walk out of sight before she allowed herself a smile in return.

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The flight had been long, though she supposed it could have been much worse. They'd only had one layover and it hadn't been a long one. By the time they had picked up the rental car and headed toward the small town of Aurora, Washington, Brennan was feeling every minute of her sleepless night. Booth noticed and tried to sympathize.

"You know, being cooped up in a crappy hotel in the middle of nowhere, with a fifty dollar per diem is not my idea of a good time either, you know," he told her, looking over from the driver's seat.

"You only get fifty dollars per day?" She returned his gaze. "How can you live on that?"

"Okay, what do you mean… What do you get?"

"I don't have a limit, just give them the receipts," she replied tiredly. Booth fiddled with his sunglasses before answering.

"Now, you have to have a limit, everyone has a limit. We work for the government."

"Yeah… I don't have a limit."

"But it's not fair," he said with a hint of petulance. "It's not fair to the tax payers… you're like one of those thousand dollar toilet seats."

"I imagine I am treated differently than you because I have an indispensible skill," she reasoned.

"Indispensable," he muttered. "I do not need you." But the smile on his face contradicted the tone of his words.

"Oh, so you can determine the origin of the kerf marks as well as the sex and age of the victim?" Brennan asked him dubiously.

Booth chuckled, not willing to concede defeat. "You know… you're a smart ass, you know that?"

She looked away from him and said in her smooth voice, "Objectively I'd say I'm very smart, though it has nothing to do with my ass."

His mouth went a bit dry, and he struggled _not_ to remember how the ass in question had felt against him when he'd collided into her that morning.

"You know what? I'll tell you what… you can take me out to dinner. Put me on your tab."

"That doesn't seem ethical," she replied, meeting his eyes forwardly.

"You still want that gun now don't you? Hm?" Booth bargained.

She looked at him thoughtfully. In reality, he hadn't had to offer anything. She was more than happy to have dinner with him. Breakfast and lunch too. But that wasn't the game.

"We'll start with breakfast," she said with a grin. He grinned back, contemplating the idea of eating breakfast together under very different circumstances, but he pushed those thoughts away before they showed on his face. He looked back at the road and continued to smile. Maybe this trip wouldn't be so horrible after all.

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 _This trip sucks,_ Booth thought. They had made it into town in time to catch the sheriff before the end of the work day, and the irritating man hadn't wasted ten minutes before asking his partner to dinner. Booth hoped that making a show of touching her back as they walked out of his office made it clear to the man that his Bones was off limits. He told himself that his reaction was simply because things should be kept professional while they were on a case. She seemed to agree with that line of thought. When Angela had brought up the 'hot overnight guy,' Booth had very nearly choked on his own tongue. He had calmed a bit, hearing Brennan admonish her that they were trying to work.

But now here was, in the middle of a noisy bar, watching in disgust as not only the 'hot overnight guy' but also the coroner took turns spinning her around the room. When the sheriff cut in to take his turn as well, Booth decided he'd had enough. He approached the dance floor and caught her on the end of a spin, taking her skillfully into his arms and holding her closer than any of the others had dared.

"Thought you might need a break," he told her, working very hard not to focus on the feel of her breasts pressed against his chest.

"What happened to your shirt?" Brennan asked, staring at the opened collar and the inches of skin it revealed. He wore a St. Christopher medal around his neck, and she wondered at the story behind it.

"Well, we're in a bar, it's a look."

"Everybody is pumping me," she told him.

"Sorry?"

"For information on the case," she explained.

"Bones, they're only pretending to be interested in the case." He refrained from rolling his eyes. Barely.

"Why?"

"They're hitting on you?" His statement came out sounding like a question, and he read the uncertainty in her eyes. _Could she really be that oblivious?_

"Are you sure?" Brennan asked with a little laugh. She thought back quickly over her experiences in town. Only the sheriff's invitation to dinner had been even slightly circumspect.

"Yes, I'm sure," he told her with a grin. She really was adorable sometimes. "You're the hottest thing this town has seen in a long time… Check out the competition," he said, dipping her. Denise, the same woman who had discovered the dismembered hand, was watching them from the bar with an odd expression. "Now _that_ is somebody who wants to eat your heart."

"You think she's the cannibal?" Brennan whispered conspiratorially.

"What? I don't know…" Booth was suddenly thrown off.

"You said she wanted to eat my heart, so you think she's the cannibal?"

"Oh," Booth chuckled, understanding now. "No, Bones it's just an expression. It means that she's jealous of all of the male attention you're getting because she's used to getting it herself."

"Ahhh… I see," Brennan gazed up at him brightly. "Well, I didn't realize anyone else was showing interest, but if you're right, then her behavior makes sense. Anthropologically speaking, it's a natural response to someone perceived as competition for a possible mate."

"Uh, right…" He felt nervous again, hoping she wouldn't notice that he'd just displayed that exact behavior while watching three other men put their hands on her.

Brennan fell silent then, content to simply enjoy the feel of his body against hers. His scent enveloped her, and it reminded her strongly of the night he had stayed with her after taking her to the hospital. Even stronger was the memory of waking up in his arms. They felt just as good around her now, and she relished the sensation of his muscled chest moving rhythmically to the music.

All too soon, the song had ended, and she looked at him a bit awkwardly. She wanted to dance more, but she could feel her will power slipping. The magnetism between them made it almost painful not to tilt her head and let their lips connect finally. But this was neither the time, nor the place.

Booth's thoughts ran in similar circles. He wanted her, and he knew that _she_ knew it. But it wasn't the right moment. He was there to solve a murder, not put the moves on his partner. With a sigh, he resigned himself to a cold shower in his hotel room as well as a good half hour in the confessional when he got back home.

"It's getting late, Bones. We're supposed to meet up with the sheriff again tomorrow, try to track down the park ranger." His eyes were gentle, and she felt the magnetic pull of them just a little stronger than before. She forced her gaze away before he read too much in it. _He was irritatingly good at that._

"Right. Well, we should get some rest then," she said, turning toward the door. He followed her out, looking back just once at her 'suitors' still lined up against the bar. He didn't even bother restraining the gloating sneer that crossed his features. Booth placed his hand softly on the small of her back and walked with her to the car.

She realized what it probably looked like to everyone else in the bar. So did he. But neither of them particularly cared in that instant. The ride back to the hotel was silent but charged, both of them thinking that this stalemate couldn't possibly last forever.

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"You know, Bones, the last time you found a murderer trying to destroy evidence, you shot him. This time you just knocked him out with a bedpan," he told her approvingly. "Thanks for that, because I have to explain every shot fired from any of my guns to the Bureau. The paperwork is a bitch."

"You're welcome," she said vaguely as she studied their travel itinerary. "Booth, our gate is this way." She indicated in the direction opposite his stride. He turned around promptly.

"Right, sorry."

Once they had boarded and were finally in the air, Brennan reclined her seat slightly and dug in her bag for chewing gum to relieve the pressure in her ears. She offered him a piece silently, and he thanked her. Within twenty minutes, her eyes had closed, and Booth was thankful. She had looked exhausted even before they'd left DC. He had refrained from commenting on it, knowing from experience that women didn't generally appreciate being told they looked tired.

She spent the flight sleeping, and he spent it watching her. Not in a creepy way, he assured himself. He just couldn't help it. Booth spent a lot of time looking at her these days, as often as he could manage without drawing her attention-or anyone else's for that matter. He was fairly certain that he'd been caught by Brennan more than once. And he _knew_ he'd been caught by Angela a couple of times. Her knowing little grins seemed to taunt him any time she saw him even talking to Brennan. He could only imagine what Angela was saying to her privately.

Brennan sighed deeply in her sleep then, drawing his thoughts back to her completely. _God, she's beautiful,_ he thought happily. The word didn't quite seem to do her justice, and he passed a few moments trying to think of a better one. He was reminded again of watching her sleep the night he had stayed with her. She had been breath-taking then as well. _Hmm, good word._

As he studied her delicate features, he found himself imagining what being with her would be like. Not only in a sexual way, but in an intimate way. To share her mornings, her nights, her weekends. To hold her every night as she slept, to chase her nightmares away. To wake up next to her every morning then work next to her every day. The idea of it was compelling, intoxicating.

His own eyes drift shut without his permission, and his musings became dreams…

" _Booth?"_ He heard her voice, but it was far away. "Booth!" Brennan shouted, and he jerked awake.

"What?" Booth asked, rubbing his eyes.

"You said my name," she told him. "Well, actually you said your ridiculous nickname for me rather than my actual name."

"Oh," Booth said in an apologetic tone.

"Were you dreaming?"

He most certainly did _not_ want to tell her about his dream. "I don't know. I guess. I don't remember now." He still looked disoriented, and Brennan let it pass.

"Hmm. Well, you may as well wake up. We'll be landing shortly."

She had barely finished her sentence when a flight attendant instructed everyone to fasten their seatbelts for their descent. Once on the ground, they slung their carry-ons over their shoulders and headed toward the exit.

"Did you drive here the other day?" Booth asked her as they left the terminal.

"No, I took a cab."

"I'll drive you home then. It's dark." His tone brooked no refusal, although he hadn't intended it to be a command.

It was on the tip of her tongue to refuse the offer, but she really wasn't ready to part ways yet, and the idea of waiting for a cab was unappealing. She nodded in acceptance and followed him to his vehicle.

He pulled the SUV into her parking garage a short time later and got out of the car to walk her as far as the elevator. His hand instinctively went to the small of her back, and Brennan pressed the call button before turning to tell him goodnight.

Her attention was caught by a car parked not far from them, however, and she stiffened. Booth noticed immediately and followed her gaze with narrowed eyes. It took him a split second to realize that not only were they being watched but that the observer was Peter. And he looked furious.

Peter's anger was nothing to Booth's, however. He stalked angrily toward the car, his hand reaching for the gun in his holster, but Peter quickly threw the car into gear and pulled out of the space. He was gone before Booth could close enough to do more than confirm his identity for sure.

Booth turned back to Brennan to see her wearing a disturbed and nervous expression, and his gut told him that this wasn't the first time she'd spotted Peter since the incident when he gave her a concussion. Brennan read the fury in his eyes as he walked back to her and pursed her lips in resignation.

"He's been back here before?" Booth asked heatedly, his anger barely contained. She nodded mutely. "How many times, Bones? Why didn't you tell me? Or call the cops? Have you seen him anywhere else? Did you get your locks changed?"

Brennan bristled at his tone and replied, "If you actually want an answer to any of those questions, you're going to need to let me speak."

He glared at her. "How many times?"

"A few. Usually in the garage, once or twice on the street outside."

"How often?"

"Often enough that I spoke to security about it. I told you _that_."

Her words made him angrier still. "But you left out the key element, didn't you, Bones? Why didn't you tell me this creep has been watching you for weeks?" He dared her to deny the timeline he was suggesting and fumed a bit more when she didn't.

"Because he hasn't harmed me or even attempted to come near me in all that time. And I haven't noticed him anywhere else. You're overreact-"

"Stop. You're a genius. Maybe not when it comes to reading people, but you're smart enough to know when a person is dangerous, right?"

"Yes!" Brennan's temper had spiked now too.

"Then you'll understand why I'm not leaving you alone. Let's go," he spat, gesturing toward the elevator. His eyes took one last sweep around the garage before the elevator doors closed. When they came to stop in front of her door, he examined the locks carefully.

"These have been tampered with, Bones."

"I know," she said, agitated. He looked at her in angry shock again, but she didn't say anything else. He waited until they were inside and he had thoroughly checked the rooms and windows before rounding on her.

"What do you mean _you know_? He broke in again?"

Brennan nodded. There was no use in holding back the details now.

"When? More than once? Was anything taken or moved or left here?"

She sighed in irritation again and gave him a level stare, waiting for him to stop talking so that she could answer. He did.

"Not long after you threatened him. I don't know if there have been any other times. And so far as I could tell, nothing has been out of place or been left here. I check each room every time I come home," she defended. It bothered her that he still thought her so incompetent. "I check the windows and closets, and I've even started sleeping with a doorstop under the locked door. Stop treating me like I don't know how to defend myself."

"I know that, Bones. But this guy is dangerous. I can smell it on him a mile away."

"That's ridiculous, you can't possibly sm-"

"Stop it, Bones, you know what I meant." Booth ran a hand through his hair and pulled his phone from his pocket. He dialed quickly and waited for an answer.

"Charlie, hey. It's Booth."

"Hey man, thought you were in Washington. The other one, I mean," Charlie answered with a chuckle.

"I was, we just got back. Listen, Charlie I need you to do me a favor. It's an emergency."

"Sure, boss. What's going on?"

"I need you to put out a BOLO on a Peter St. James. Caucasian. Age 35, approximately 6'1", 190 pounds, athletic build, dark hair and eyes, may or may not be wearing glasses. I've got a license plate number…"

Brennan listened as Booth rattled off the information to Agent Burns, thanked him, and ended the call.

"Right, so… I think I'll take the couch this time. I want to be closer to the door."

"What? There's no need for you to stay here," she argued.

"Look Bones, I'm really not going to argue about this. I'm not letting you out of my sight until that asshole is in custody."

She groaned in exasperation. "You're being needlessly overprotective, Booth. I keep a gun right next to my bed; I'm perfectly capable of using it to defend myself."

The idea that she she had a gun that could so easily be turned on _her_ in a confrontation terrified him even more, and his adrenaline amped up yet again. He grabbed her by the upper arms and pushed his face closer to hers to make his point.

"The guy gave you a concussion the last time he got close to you, Bones. Have you forgotten that? This is the kind of guy who won't think twice about hurting you again because you're not giving him what he wants!"

Brennan could've thrown his hands off of her, but she didn't. Instead, she got in his face as well.

"I know exactly what kind of guy Peter is, Booth. It's not your job to protect-"

Before she could finish her sentence, he was kissing her. She held still in shock for a fraction of a second, but then she was kissing him back fiercely. His hands loosened from around her arms and moved in opposite directions. One gripped her waist possessively; the other buried itself in her hair and tipped her head backward. Her own hands slid slowly around his neck, and the kiss deepened. Their tongues met without reservation, and she gasped at the feel of him. Her heart accelerated out of control, and she felt a tingling rush descend to her center.

The kiss seemed to stretch infinitely, and she moaned into his mouth in surrender. Eventually the need for oxygen could no longer be denied, and their lips broke apart finally. She was still leaning against him, her breath ragged, when she met his eyes. They were nearly black with unconcealed desire, and his breathing was labored as well. The charge between them was nearly palpable as they tried to get a better hold on their desires. Unsurprisingly, she was the first to break the silence.

"You know… Usually when you want to silence me, you simply change the subject."

Booth flushed in embarrassment but didn't miss the gleam in her eyes. He released her, and she pulled her arms down, but she didn't completely move away.

"In the future," she said in her sultry voice, "if you're ever faced with the dilemma again… I prefer _this_ method."

His shock registered on his face and he swallowed convulsively. But before he could respond, she had stepped away from him toward the hallway.

"You should take the guest room. The couch is bad for your back," she said, not looking back at him. "Goodnight."

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 **Thanks for reading! Reviews make me as giddy as Brennan at a Body Farm. ;)**


	5. Chapter 5

**Thank you again for all of your kind words! I can't tell you how much I appreciate them! I'm beyond flattered by your compliments, and they're keeping me motivated to continue writing. I think you will all like this chapter quite a bit. Enjoy!**

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Chapter 5

He watched her disappear behind her bedroom door, but he merely stood there for another minute or two, urging his body to calm down. _Holy hell_ , he thought to himself. It was a good thing she had walked away, because he had been about two seconds from picking her up and carrying her to the bedroom himself. If they made it that far. Booth envied her self control, especially since he had felt her body respond to him the instant their lips had touched. There was no question about it now: eventually he would have her. He'd make slow, passionate love to her, he'd take her hard and fast, and every way in between.

Still dazed, he moved to the front door to check the locks again and spied the doorstop she had mentioned lying nearby. He pushed the little wedge under the door and turned off the lights. Whether his back liked it or not, he was going to sleep on the couch, he decided. He didn't want to sleep too deeply anyway. He grabbed a throw pillow and blanket before setting his gun down next to him on the coffee table.

Neither of them slept easily that night. Brennan had taken a long nap on the plane, and she was far too worked up to be able to sleep now. She had retreated to her bedroom mostly as a means of self control. One more kiss like that and she'd have had him shouting her name before he'd even known what happened. And that wouldn't do. When they eventually did have sex, it was damn well going to last all night, she thought eagerly. Because there was no longer any doubt in her mind about _that_. At some point in the near future, she was going to screw her partner senseless.

She was bemused by her own change of mind. Brennan knew that beginning a sexual relationship could jeopardize their partnership, which was something she valued highly. But surely they could find a way around that, couldn't they? She knew beyond a doubt that sleeping with Booth would _not_ be a one-time thing. If his kisses were any indication at all, she felt certain that she would never want to _stop_ having sex with him. Maybe what the FBI didn't know wouldn't hurt them. They were both very professional at work, after all…

The dawn greeted them both long before they were ready, but the realization that they were separated only by a door and a couple dozen feet was enough to motivate them both. As soon as he heard Brennan turn on the shower, Booth ran quickly to his SUV to grab his duffel bag. Luckily, he had packed for a longer stay in Aurora than was necessary and wouldn't have to make a detour to his place for clean clothing.

There was no sign of Peter in the garage or the building, and Booth exhaled in mild relief. As much as he wanted to confront the bastard, he didn't want the man anywhere near Bones again if he could help it. His gut was screaming that this whole situation was more than simply a creep watching a beautiful woman, and Booth had absolutely no intention of becoming complacent about her safety, no matter how much she might yell at him.

It was with that frame of mind that he stopped by the security desk on his way back in. Jacob was at his post again, and Booth discussed the situation with him briefly. Jacob was concerned that things had escalated and promised to have the security tapes forwarded to the FBI that day. He explained to Booth that Dr. Brennan was the reason no one on the staff had contacted him. She had assured Jacob that she would pass along the information. While this didn't surprise Booth in the slightest, he was still frustrated with her. He instructed Jacob to keep in touch with him, no matter what Dr. Brennan says, explaining to the man that his partner was too self-assured for her own good. Jacob seemed to agree whole-heartedly both with Booth's assessment and his instructions.

He returned to her apartment quickly and started coffee before using the shower in her guest bathroom again. The morning was playing its usual tricks on his body, and after washing he spent several minutes under the cold jet of water. The increase in the number of cold showers he'd taken since becoming her partner would be comical if they actually worked longer than a few minutes.

Brennan showered and dressed hastily, distracted with memories of the previous night. _What on earth was she going to say to him today?_ She was questioning her ability to even look the man in the eye without 'jumping him,' as Angela would say. She took a shaky breath and forced her attention back to her morning preparations.

She was due to help Dr. Goodman present a seminar at American University today, and she knew without having to ask that Booth would insist on going with her. The thought warmed her pleasantly. They had met under similar circumstances, and she couldn't help but remember his words.

" _Do you believe in fate?"_

" _Absolutely not. Ludicrous."_

Dr. Temperance Brennan would never admit to believing in fate, of course. But in her quiet moments, since they had become partners, she had mused that it was irony at the very least. Their work was already receiving praise from Booth's superiors as well as some board members at the Jeffersonian. They were due to increase the funding for the Medico-Legal lab as a result of the positive media coverage their cases had received. And now, compounding that irony, was the undeniable direction of their personal relationship. And although she knew she wasn't quite prepared for that part just yet, Brennan found herself feeling thankful that she had given Booth another chance. _And that he had let her be a duck, whatever that meant._

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By the time they had both entered the kitchen, the coffee was ready, and Brennan poured a cup for each of them. She caught herself watching his hands as he stirred his sugar into the hot liquid, mesmerized at his movements. It wasn't at all difficult to imagine his strong hands doing _other_ mesmerizing things. She heard his stomach rumble a little and realized that if this arrangement went on for long, she would need to pick up some Booth-friendly food.

Booth glanced at her nervously. He had no idea what to say to her about the kiss. He had laid awake for most of the night, vacillating between happiness and fear. He was beyond elated that he had finally kissed her again, especially since it had been even better than the kiss they'd shared in the rain last year. But Booth worried that Brennan might have been offended at the way he'd initiated it-basically as a means to stop the words coming out of that _mouth_. Booth had also resolved to look into his FBI employee handbook at the first opportunity.

He knew they needed to talk about things, and so did she. But neither were sure if this was the time.

"Bones-"

"Booth-"

They began speaking simultaneously, then stopped, smiling at each other in amusement, and their mutual anxiety seemed to fade greatly.

"Um… I have a seminar with Goodman this morning at American University," she reminded him haltingly.

He smiled, "Yeah, I remember. I'll go with you."

"I figured as much," she said with a look of false irritation. He wasn't fooled.

"What, no arguing this time? No repetitive insisting that you're a big girl who can take care of herself?" His words were mocking, but his tone was merely playful.

"Would it make any difference?"

"None at all."

"Then I suppose I should save my energy," she replied huskily. The double entendre was not lost on Booth, and his heart raced just a little faster.

"That's probably wise." They smiled at each other then, and began to collect their things in preparation to leave.

Booth's nerves returned as he worried that if he didn't speak up now about the kiss, she might just decide to pretend it didn't happen.

"Bones… About what happened last night…" but he paused, seeing the slightly panicked expression on her face. He knew in an instant that she wasn't ready to talk about whatever was happening with them. Booth was okay with that. He'd give her time, because he knew in his gut _and_ his heart that she was worth it. Worth the wait.

He looked at the floor for a moment and tried again, "Look, obviously we need to talk about things," he said softly. "But it's okay if you're not quite ready to do that."

Their eyes met, and he knew he'd read her correctly when hers flooded with relief. He smiled at her reassuringly.

"Thank you," she said simply, giving him a breath-taking smile.

"Any time. Just make sure you let me know when you're ready, ok?"

"That sounds rational," she approved. She turned to grab her keys from the foyer table, and they took his SUV to the university for her seminar. As Booth pulled out of the parking garage, he looked again for signs of Peter, but saw nothing still. Not wanting thoughts of the guy to ruin his mood, he quickly landed on a question he'd been meaning to ask her.

"Hey, I meant to ask the other day, but did you get a new car?" He glanced back at the silver car occupying her space. It seemed to gleam even in the low light of the structure.

"Yes," she answered. "Why?"

"No reason, just couldn't remember you mentioning that you were looking for one."

"Oh. That's because I wasn't." He looked at her in confusion, so she elaborated. "My publisher gave it to me."

"Gave it to you," he stated, not sure he'd understood correctly.

"Book sales are pretty good. It's supposed to be a nice car."

"Gave it to you?"

"Yeah." She looked the odd expression on his face. "I told them it wasn't necessary, but that didn't seem to matter."

Booth was having a difficult time wrapping his mind around the concept of a car like _that_ as a gift. He'd known her book was doing well. He'd read it himself, more than once actually. And he was fairly certain that Agent Andy Lister was based on him. Though it bothered him that she had written a sex scene between Andy and Amanda, who was undeniably inspired by Angela. There was only one woman the real life Agent Andy wanted, and it certainly wasn't Angela.

Brennan wasn't sure why Booth was reacting oddly to the car. It wasn't as though she had asked for it or spent that exorbitant amount of money on herself. She decided to change the subject.

"You know, you might actually enjoy the seminar today. It's about the FBI's relationship with the Jeffersonian, which dates back to J. Edgar Hoover…"

"Oh really?" Booth grinned impishly. "Need any help with that, Bones? We could tell them all about how well our partnership works… You know, when you're not blackmailing me or begging for a firearm."

"Hey, blackmailing you _did_ work very well," she boasted adorably. "And I'm confident that you'll eventually give me a gun. You just need to be properly motivated."

"Right, well if shooting the suspect in the leg is your idea of proper motivation-"

"The man was trying to set me on _fire_ ," she protested. "You wouldn't have done things any differently." Their eyes held in a challenge for a few moments.

"Maybe. But _I'm_ the one with the badge, so _I_ do the shooting," he replied with a huge grin.

They bickered back and forth until they arrived at the lecture hall, at which point, Booth took up a position near the door and observed the attendees. His phone buzzed after a few minutes, and he stepped out discreetly to answer it. The agent on the other end informed them that they had a possible case, and they needed to leave quickly to check it out because of the public nature of the crime scene. He re-entered the hall as Brennan was finishing her remarks. She offered to answer questions from the students afterward. However, none of them were interested in anything more than her success as an author. Dr. Goodman quickly became exasperated, and Booth saw his opportunity to interrupt so they could get moving to the crime scene.

"I have a question regarding the role of the FBI in your book," Booth spoke up from the side aisle. "Who do you base the brilliant and insightful Special Agent Andy Lister on?"

"Oh for God's sake," said Goodman, having reached his limit.

"Because, you know, I'm _pretty_ sure it was me." His eyes twinkled at her, and he tried to moderate the grin threatening to split his face. She shook her head and smiled right back. They wrapped things up then, and as Booth walked by her side back to the SUV, his hand gravitated once more to her lower back.

"What was that all about, Booth?" Brennan wasn't mad of course, but Dr. Goodman had looked displeased, and that never boded well for the 'squints.'

"We got a call to check out a reported crime scene."

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"Are you alright?" Brennan asked Angela quietly. The body of a young boy had been recovered from a field behind a suburban shopping mall. They were all a little more somber than usual, but Angela looked on the verge of a breakdown.

"He's so small. That's all. Go on with your work, I'm ok."

Brennan, Hodgins, and Zack continued their preliminary examinations, taking turns sharing their conclusions while Angela sketched. When she finished, she handed the paper to Brennan.

"I'm done," Angela told her.

Brennan paced to a nearby computer monitor which currently displayed the missing persons photo of six-year-old Charlie Sanders. Brennan confirmed the match aloud and looked sadly at Booth, who stood waiting near the platform railing. He nodded grimly and gestured toward her office to indicate that he wanted a word. Brennan removed her gloves and followed him.

Booth hated cases that involved kids. He supposed everyone did, but becoming a father had made things like this so much more difficult. When they reached her office, he turned to face her, and even she could read the emotion on his face. She understood that his mind was drawing parallels with his own son, who was just two years younger than the victim.

Instinctively, she reached out and took his hand. He squeezed hers in return, welcoming the comfort. He nodded at her in thanks and let go after another moment. He needed to locate his 'game face,' and seeing the compassion in her eyes was making that a challenge.

"Booth?"

"I'm ok, Bones. Listen, I need to go notify the mother. I'd ask you to come, but…"

"I think I need to be here at the moment, Booth. Angela is having trouble coping, and Zack is behaving differently as well. I'd rather not leave him alone with the lab work just now."

That hadn't been what he was thinking at all, but he was glad to support her reasoning. In reality, he had been concerned that his emotional state might affect his defensive instincts enough that she could be harmed if he failed to sense some potential threat in time. He had the feeling she wouldn't particularly like hearing that.

"Yeah, I agree. Look, though… I need you to swear you'll stay at the lab, ok?" She looked like she might want to argue, and he continued quickly, "I just need to know that you're in a safe place so I'm not worried and distracted from finding the sick fuck who killed that kid. I promise I'll come get you if I need you. And you can call if you have anything new for me, I promise to answer my phone no matter what. Ok? Please just do this for me." He was pleading, and he knew it. But the thought of her in danger because he wasn't with her was enough to erase any urge to preserve his dignity on this one.

Brennan gazed back at him in surprise. She would have stayed put anyway; he really hadn't needed to go on like that. She watched his pulse flutter wildly in his neck and understood that he was more worried than he'd wanted to let on.

"Of course, Booth. Please don't worry about me. The lab is secured; no one is coming in who shouldn't be here." Normally, she would have taken the opportunity to proclaim her self-defense skills and admonish him for his overreactions. But she couldn't bring herself to do it right now when he looked so upset.

"Thanks, Bones," he said with a pained smile. He knew it took a lot for her to swallow her pride and reassure him with facts rather than arguments. He clasped her hand again briefly. "I'll call you later."

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While Booth spoke to the victim's mother, the forensic investigation continued at the lab. Brennan gently advised Zack to avoid referring to the victim by name in cases where his emotional response might compromise his ability to remain unbiased. She explained that she had helped to identify the remains of twenty-seven children who had died in the fire at Waco. _Kids make it harder, Zack_ , she'd told him. Brennan hoped he would be able to overcome his sensitivity eventually. This career would prove extremely difficult for him if he didn't.

Angela remained melancholy throughout the day as well, latching on to the story behind Hodgins' refusal to attend the donor gala the following evening and the sudden reappearance of a rubber band around his wrist as a means of distracting herself. He hadn't needed it in a while, she noted, calling him out for what it was-an anger management technique. He refused to explain his irritation with their compulsory banquet summons.

Booth returned several hours later with new information. In speaking to the victim's elder two foster brothers, it had come out that the little boy had disappeared from a different place than had originally been reported. The elder brother had been covering for a meetup with a girlfriend. The boy had vanished from the mall, rather than the park, and Booth had gotten his hands on the security tapes.

As Angela began to sort through the images with Zack, Booth stood behind them, distracted by Zack's description of Hodgins' house. He concluded that Hodgins owned the Cantilever Group, which was responsible for a large percentage of the lab's budget. Booth teased them about Hodgins' being their boss.

Brennan joined them a few moments later, and the conversation shifted back to the security tapes. She bragged on Angela's mass recognition program, but Angela refused to take credit completely. Eventually they located the small boy on the video footage, and Angela left the room in silence.

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"Are you thinking of leaving the Jeffersonian?" Brennan asked hesitantly, sitting next to Angela on the very same bench they had occupied not long ago, when Angela had advised Brennan to 'offer up a bit of herself.'

"I'm not really this person," Angela replied morosely.

"What person?"

"I'm not like you. I'm not driven by the need for justice and all that. I'm a good-time girl."

"We have good times," Brennan pointed out, a bit defensively.

"Cracking jokes over murdered skeletons is not 'good time.'"

"I know it's harder on you than the rest of us."

"No, it's not, " Angela denied, but then reconsidered. "Why?"

"Because you look at their faces. We look at everything else. It's more clinical for us," she reasoned. "For you-it's personal. When we see a murdered child-"

"Honey… no offense, but I'm really not up for one of your _It Takes a Village_ anthropology lessons," she sniffled. "This is the longest job I've ever had. That's because of you."

"If this is about hours, or time to do your own art, then-"

"Just let me work on it, Angela interrupted. "I'm an artist. I used to draw naked guys. Now I draw dead guys."

"Just don't decide anything without talking to me," Brennan insisted.

"Of course I won't." They sat together quietly for a little while longer, both pondering the future.

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Booth matched strides with Brennan as she walked toward the Bone Room. She confided in him anxiously that she feared Angela might quit. Booth was honestly amazed that Angela had lasted as long as she had there, but he could sense that Brennan was very troubled at the thought of losing her best friend as a co-worker. He swallowed the disparaging remark that came to his mind.

"She's sensitive, Bones. More than some of the rest of you, anyway. She'll figure things out," he tried to reassure her. In reality, Booth wouldn't be at all surprised if Angela tendered her resignation soon. _Maybe before that ridiculous 'gala' we're all conscripted to_ , Booth thought with wry humor. But his eyes rested upon the tiny skeleton as they entered the Bone Room, and he fell silent.

"It helps to focus on the details," Zack advised. Booth looked at him grimly.

"Let's do that." He listened to Brennan teach her student and marveled at her ability to remain professional with a case like this, even if he wasn't entirely sure it was a good thing for her. His attention snapped to Brennan then as she had an epiphany of sorts regarding the boy's genetic bone condition.

The woman he'd spoken to only that morning couldn't have possibly been his biological mother.

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Booth felt significantly better about his day after a long talk with Parker. Rebecca had been frustrated when she answered the phone, informing him that he was interrupting something and asking what was so important that he needed to talk to Parker right that minute. He would see him in less than a week anyway. Booth gritted his teeth in frustration at having to justify a simple request to speak with his own son, but he explained anyway. Rebecca had been appropriately contrite and had handed the phone to Parker then, but it still rankled. Booth wondered idly if four years old was too young for a cell phone, as the little boy could be heard running at top speed toward the phone. He talked to Parker for nearly thirty minutes before Rebecca stepped in and insisted that Parker get washed up for dinner. Booth hung up the phone feeling substantially lighter of mind and heart.

Booth set up an interview with Margaret Sanders for the following morning at the Hoover. Brennan argued that she should stay and work late, but he managed to overrule her.

"You know if you do that, you won't get any decent sleep, Bones. Even if you crashed on your couch, you'd still stay up way too late and then be exhausted tomorrow," he told her in his you-know-I'm-right tone. And as much as his presumption might irritate her, she knew he was right.

So she agreed to go home and sleep. She didn't even argue when he reminded her that he would stay with her again. Whether it showed to anyone else or not, Brennan was struggling with this case as well. It brought back images of other times, other places, other dead children she'd had to examine. Booth had seen a flash of it in her eyes in the Bone Room earlier, but he knew that she clung to her professionalism as a coping mechanism.

They agreed to stop at Wong Foo's for a quick dinner and were pleased that Sid's 'knack' was still in full force. He had two plates of comfort food sitting in front of them within minutes. They ate silently for a few moments, each occupied with their own thoughts. Brennan broke the silence hesitantly.

"Booth?" He looked at her and raised his brows slightly. "Earlier you said that Angela was more sensitive than the rest of us…" It had been bothering her since he'd said it. Not that she didn't know that the cases were harder on Angela, because everyone did. But what concerned her was that Booth might think her reputation as a cold fish was accurate. Brennan wasn't accustomed to feeling insecure, and she was finding it to be a very unpleasant state of mind.

"Well, not necessarily _more_ sensitive…" Booth faltered, realizing he may have hurt her feelings inadvertently. "I just meant that she has a harder time coping with sensitive cases. She had some trouble with it during the Nestor Olivos case too." He watched her face as he spoke and could tell that she was processing his words.

"That's true. Cases involving children are always more difficult," she agreed. She didn't meet his eyes, and Booth touched his fingertips to her chin gently, turning her head toward him.

"I didn't mean anything negative about anyone when I said that," he reassured her. "I know that you all feel the gravity of a case like this. I just meant that some of you are able to work through it a bit easier than others." A tiny smile flickered in her eyes in response.

"I'm sorry, I just…" Brennan paused, considering her words. "I know that I have a reputation when it comes to-"

"Hey. Don't." Booth looked at her intensely. "Don't ever believe those things about yourself, Bones. Anyone who says that doesn't know you at all." She was silent as she looked into his eyes, the warmth of his acceptance radiating through her. Booth watched it reach her beautiful eyes and knew that she believed him. They smiled affectionately at each other for a moment, then turned their attention back to their meals.

It was late by the time they arrived at her apartment building, and had Brennan been less exhausted, she would have noticed a change in her own behavior. Booth swept his eyes back and forth, on the lookout for trouble from a certain abusive ex, but Brennan had forgotten to look for herself. For weeks she'd been on high alert, always watching with anxiety for Peter to reappear, checking and rechecking the rooms of her home to make sure she was truly alone… But one night with Booth had reassured her to the point that watching for her ex didn't cross her mind. She hadn't looked for him that morning either.

After locking the front door, making sure the rooms were clear of intruders, and sliding her little doorstop into position, he placed his gun on the coffee table and turned back to look at her.

"You really should sleep in a bed," she admonished. "I know your back has been bothering you today. Another night on the couch is really not advisable."

"No, it's ok. I don't want to sleep too heavily and be caught off guard if something does happen. I need to be close to the door too."

She chewed her bottom lip in a gesture he was coming to adore and said, "Then we'll leave the bedroom doors open again. Come on, Booth. You were scolding me like a child about not getting enough sleep, and now you're doing the same thing. Shouldn't you practice what you teach?"

He smiled at her sleepily. "It's _preach_ , Bones. _Practice what you preach_."

"Right, because the words have such different meanings," she remarked dryly.

"Wow, was that _sarcasm_ , Bones? Impressive. Especially after the day we've had."

"I can be quite amusing at times," she smiled back. "Come on. If I'm going to withhold arguments about your overprotectiveness, then you're going to sleep where you're told." And with that, she placed a hand on _his_ back and led him down the hallway.

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"Hey, do you mind if we make a quick stop before we go to the Hoover? We should have enough time," Booth asked her from the driver's seat of his SUV.

"Sure. Where are we going?"

"My place. Need to grab my tux for that banquet tonight." He refused to call it a _gala_ out loud. As if the event wasn't going to be pretentious enough, they had to call it a _gala_?

"I didn't realize your attendance was compulsory as well," she said in surprise. His tone was a clear indication that he didn't want to go any more than the rest of them did.

"Yeah, well apparently they like the press coverage they've gotten off a few of our cases, and somebody on the board knows somebody up the food chain at the FBI, and so on. So I get to spend my evening in a monkey suit trying not to offend all the rich people." He looked dejected, and she sympathized.

"I'll admit, it's certainly not how I would prefer to be spending this evening either. Goodman made it perfectly clear that he was ready to play dirty if we didn't show up. But look at this way. If you weren't going, you'd likely just spend the evening acting like a security guard outside because you're being so overprotective these days. This way, you'll get to eat." She ended her speech with a knowing smile.

"I suppose you've got a point… Any idea what they're serving?"

"Not a clue."

"Hmm," he said contemplatively. His stomach growled a bit, and she noticed.

"What do you usually eat for breakfast?" Brennan asked

"Uh… I don't know, whatever's around I guess. Cereal, eggs, bacon, pancakes…" He wasn't sure why she was asking him this.

"Ok," she answered mysteriously. He opened his mouth to ask why she wanted to know, but she continued quickly, "Where do you plan on getting dressed for the gala?" They were pulling up outside his place then.

"Wherever you do, I guess," he said, not immediately recognizing the hidden implications his words could have. Her expression was amused as she watched him try to recover. "I mean, you know… because we need to stay together." His face reddened a little, but he managed to share a tiny smile with her.

"I'm planning to change at the lab. You can leave your tux in my office for the day if you like."

"That's great. Thanks, Bones." She nodded graciously in return.

He only took a few minutes inside to grab his belongings, and she waited patiently near the front door. They arrived at the Hoover with five minutes to spare and sat down to question Margaret Sanders. The woman bristled when Brennan explained how she knew the woman wasn't the victim's mother.

"Never say that I wasn't Charlie's real mother, because I was."

"Biological mother then, Mrs. Sanders, you are not Charlie's biological mother. You want to explain that to us?" Booth asked with a cautious expression.

She explained that she had fostered the boy at ten days old, had him for three weeks, then gave him back when the boy's mother was released from jail. From then, she stayed in touch and bought things for the child. But on Christmas Day that year, she found the woman had died of a drug overdose, and the baby was crying upstairs.

"And you took him home," Brennan supplied when Mrs. Sanders paused.

"I looked him in the eyes, and I promised him that I would never leave him alone again. And he stopped crying. I expected every day for Child Services to come looking."

"He would've ended up back in the system anyway," Brennan told her gently.

"I meant to keep him safe," she said, breaking down. "And love him. And now he's dead."

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Brennan was in turmoil. Booth had arrested Margaret Sanders for kidnapping, even after the woman's story checked out. Rationally, she knew that he was obliged to follow the law, that it was his job. But Brennan was livid at the injustice of what had happened to the woman as well as what would now happen to her two foster sons.

"What about Shawn and David Cook? Where do they go now?" Brennan didn't really need to ask. She knew how things worked.

"Back into the system," Booth answered shortly.

"Do you have any _idea_ how _bad_ the foster care system is?"

"Do _you_?" He answered back. He could read the desperation in her voice, but he didn't understand it. "What do you want to do? Do you want to kidnap them, the way she kidnapped Charlie?"

She refrained from answering his first question and simply stated, "I want them to go home to Margaret Sanders."

"It's not gonna happen," he told her regretfully.

Brennan stood in front of him for a moment, trying to decide how best to respond. But nothing came to her except an urge to be finished talking about this. She turned on her heel and made for the door, but his voice made her pause.

"Wait, Bones, I'll come with you. I don't want you going alone." She turned again and began walking toward the elevator.

"Then you'd better hurry up," she warned. He grabbed his keys and followed after her quietly, seeming to sense that she wanted their prior conversation to end. They drove in silence for a while, and her mind was miles away. Or years, rather. She wasn't sure if she was ready for him to know about her childhood. Brennan assumed that he knew at least a little about her parents. She knew exactly what information was in their missing persons files, and it wasn't much. What did Booth think had happened to her after her parents disappeared? Apparently he had no idea that her brother had abandoned her to the foster system…

"Listen, I understand if you don't want to talk about it anymore, but… I really am sorry. Sometimes doing my job means doing things I don't agree with. But the law is the law, even when it feels wrong on a personal level. I'm sorry, Bones."

She digested his words quietly before offering an apology of her own. "I'm sorry too," she said softly. She didn't elaborate, and he decided to let it go.

Brennan knew this wasn't something he could control, and it was clear that Booth wasn't happy about it either. She felt her respect for him grow even more as she silently acknowledged that he was every bit as dedicated to his job as she was to hers.

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Booth dropped her off at the doors and went to park the SUV, but he didn't immediately follow her into the lab, understanding that she needed a little time. When he did find her in her office a little while later, he noticed that a large glass panel had appeared behind her desk. It displayed an organized array of post-it notes. Brennan glanced at him, then admonished him for trying to read the tiny pieces of paper.

"Hey. I already told Hodgins not to read that; you stop too." But her words lacked any real heat, and he knew then that he was forgiven. For reading her notes as well as doing a crappy part of his job. Booth was intrigued now though. He was sure he'd seen the name _Andy_ written on at least one of the little papers.

"Are you writing another book?" Booth asked her.

"Yes. Well, I'm trying to work out a concept, anyway. My publisher has been pressuring me to turn the one book into a series. It seems the car was bribery," she answered tiredly.

"Hmm. Well don't do it unless _you_ want to. Screw them and their fancy car," he said with a sexy wink in her direction. She laughed her low, warm laugh, and the sound sent a shiver down his spine.

"Did you need something?" Brennan asked, calling his attention back.

"Yeah, Angela has a face for the abductor. She's waiting to show you."

They walked together to Angela's office and stood behind her to get a closer look. They see the victim on the footage again and watch as the face of the person next to him rendered on the screen. It wasn't an adult as they expected. It was Shawn Cook.

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Brennan was irritated. Shawn Cook was refusing to answer Booth's questions, and Brennan watched from behind the observation glass next to the Juvenile Prosecutor. The child advocate who sat in the room next to Booth and Shawn remained silent throughout the exchange. Brennan was disgusted with the entire situation. No one seemed opposed to Booth's questioning tactics, and although Brennan knew he meant no harm in them, she was angry on the child's behalf.

Booth apparently decided it was time to try something different, and showed the boy a childhood scar obtained while playing with his brother. Brennan hadn't known that he even had a brother, but she remembered that she hadn't told him about her brother either.

"What I need to know is if Charlie had some kind of accident," Booth told him gently. But the boy went silent. "Shawn?"

The advocate suggested taking a break, and the prosecutor next to Brennan shook her head irritably.

"He's not being aggressive enough," the woman said.

"Foster kids are powerless," Brennan protested. "They're treated like _garbage_. You're in a position to do something about it, and all you have to say is 'He's not being aggressive enough?'"

The prosecutor said something else before leaving, but Brennan's ears seemed to be ringing too loudly to hear. Booth joined her then, and they left to return to the lab until the advocate decided they could proceed. Brennan went straight to the Bone Room, and Booth stepped away to make a call. He made arrangements with the boys' social worker to see that they were in an emergency foster home together.

"That's good, thanks," Brennan said when he told her.

"It's the best I could do," he told her apologetically, knowing it wasn't enough to make her feel better.

"Yeah, I understand." Booth sighed and shook his head a little at her response.

"No, you say you understand, but it seems like you don't. Not really. If you don't like the rule, you ignore it, right?" He leaned forward on the table and continued, "I can't have that, if you want to do this-"

"Do what?" Brennan asked, startled.

"Work on cases, you know, with me. Outside the lab. If you want to do that, I need to know that you will respect the law," he finished. Brennan understood his logic immediately and hoped he would understand hers. Her voice broke as she replied.

"Well, if I can't respect the law, I can at least respect you."

His surprise registered on his features. To hear Dr. Temperance Brennan say that she respected him that much wasn't something he expected from her.

"Well, yeah… That'll work too, but-"

"Look what you did," she said, her attention caught by a pencil on the table. He had accidentally broken it into three pieces. He looked down in confusion.

"It's a pencil, I'll get you a new one," he placated. But the wheels in her head were turning, and Booth could almost see the answers forming in her mind at warp speed. He followed her to Angela's office, and listened to them postulate on the exact set of circumstances that caused the boy's broken ribs.

"We should be looking for a full-grown man," Booth said when they had finished rendering the scenario on the Angelator.

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"You have to get Shawn to tell you where he took Charlie when they left the mall," Brennan told him. They were waiting for the social worker to bring the boy back for more questioning.

"He won't talk to me," Booth replied. Brennan weighed their options for a moment and made a decision.

"Let me do it."

"Uh, no. You know, people aren't really your strong point, Bones. He's not going to care how many facts you put in front of him…"

"Could you just go with me on this one, Booth? We're trying to catch a killer. Let me help."

"When's the last time you even talked to a kid?"

"I know what to say," she assured him. He looked at her uncertainly but figured there was really nothing to lose by allowing it.

A short time later, their positions were reversed from the earlier interview, and now Brennan sat with Shawn and the advocate.

"Do you remember me, Shawn?"

"The museum lady. The one who's so smart."

"Yeah, I'm pretty smart," Brennan replied softly. "Smart enough to know that you didn't kill Charlie." The boy wouldn't look at her, and she sighed. "You don't have to say anything, Shawn, just listen. They give you a garbage bag to carry all your stuff. Like they're telling you everything you own is garbage. And then you have to go to a new school in clothes that smell like garbage bags."

"All the regular kids know you're a foster kid," he sniffled. "How do you know what it's like?"

Brennan didn't answer, but simply continued, "They bounce you from place to place, and it's never home. Sometimes the foster parents are nice." Her tone implied that sometimes they _aren't_.

"Like Margaret."

"Yeah. And sometimes they separate you from your brother. It must have been nice with Margaret, staying with David."

"We got bunk beds," the boy told her, crying in earnest now. "At night I knew David was there. Like he was guarding me. Margaret's nice."

"You'd do almost anything to stay with Margaret, right?" He nodded in response.

"The man you took Charlie to, the man who hurt him-he knows that. You didn't know that he'd hurt Charlie, but he did. And then he told you that Margaret would blame you, that she'd hate you." Brennan said the words with conviction. Foster kids being manipulated was nothing she hadn't seen before. "But this man is lying to you, Shawn. I can make sure you go back to Margaret."

"How? You work at a museum."

Brennan glanced at the two-way mirror, her eyes full of unshed tears. "I have a friend at the FBI. If I ask him to, he will make sure that you and David get to live with Margaret again."

The advocate spoke up then, "Dr. Brennan, you can't make promises like that."

"Yes I can," she answered quickly. "He will do it, my friend will make it happen." She turned back to Shawn. "But you have to tell me who hurt Charlie."

"What if Margaret doesn't want me anymore? Charlie was her real son," the boy said through his tears.

"Charlie wasn't her biological son either. Charlie was just like you: someone that Margaret _chose_ to love. I don't think we should let that man take you and David away from Margaret. Do you?" The boy shook his head. "We should stop him. You and I should stop him."

Shawn sat in tearful silence for another moment before turning and wrapping his arms around Brennan, whispering in her ear. She continued to hold him and looked to the mirror again. Booth knew that she couldn't see him, but her gaze made his chest ache nonetheless. He had understood even more in her words than the boy had, and he struggled to maintain his focus on closing the case. He would talk to her about it later, and hopefully she would be willing to answer just a few of the dozens of questions he now had about her past.

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The arrest had been made with little fuss, and the Cook boys were back with Margaret Sanders, but both Brennan and Booth were left raw and exhausted. However much they might wish they could call it a night and go back to her apartment, they still had a banquet to attend with the Jeffersonian's donors.

"Look, I'm sorry," Booth said once they were back in her office.

"For what?"

"You have personal experience in the system." His eyes were pained. _Pity_ , she thought ruefully. She'd recognize it anywhere.

"I was a foster child until my grandfather got me out," she told him. It was a lie, but not an important one. She'd had no grandparents that she could ever remember. But she couldn't bear to see the pity on his face any longer.

"Yeah, when you said 'They take you away from your brother,' I kind of had the feeling you weren't talking about David Cook."

 _He assumes that Russ was in the system with me, that I wasn't alone_ , Brennan thought sadly. She pulled in a deep breath and met his eyes. "Booth, I'll tell you all about it one day. But tonight, I have to get dressed for a party. And so do you." She smiled tremulously at him, and he was struck again at how incredible she was.

"Right. Sure we can't get out of it?"

"Well, I can't speak for you, but I certainly can't. You could always go home…" Brennan trailed off in light amusement.

"Not gonna happen. Not yet," he told her, looking at his shoes. "I'm sorry if I'm being a stubborn, over-protective alpha male. I don't mean to irritate you. I just need to know that you're safe."

She could have taken the opportunity to scold him for his behavior, bleat that she could handle her _own_ safety, thank-you-very-much. But instead, she crossed the room to the closet and pulled out the garment bag that held his tux. She handed it to him with a slow smile.

"You'd better not make me late," she teased fondly.

"You got it," he answered, taking the tux from her. He went to the restroom to change, leaving her to do the same. She dressed quickly, slipping into the black and white dress, coaxing her hair into a sleek ponytail, and reapplying her makeup. She switched out her jewelry as well and slid her feet into a pair of heels that were a little higher than what she normally wore.

The dress was new: purchased for a date she hadn't ended up going on, and she was glad to have a use for it now. It was strapless, black lace laid over soft white organza, falling to just below her knees. And the moment Booth saw her standing next to the platform in it, he seemed to have trouble drawing breath. He knew he should stare at her a little less; after all, the squints were gathered with them, waiting for Goodman. But he had eyes for no one else, and in that instant, he couldn't have cared less who noticed.

If Brennan had thought that Booth in a suit was attractive, Booth in a _tux_ was wit-numbingly handsome. He was more appealing than she'd ever seen him… with the possible exception of tank-and-boxers Booth. She sighed longingly at the thought. The lines of the coat seemed to accentuate the physique beneath them, and Brennan did her fair share of staring too. It wasn't until someone cleared their throat gently that they both realized they were behaving oddly. The spell broken, they turned their attention to the conversation around them until they were all ready to leave.

Booth pulled her toward the back of the group as they walked, hoping they might not be overheard.

"You look nice. Better than nice, you look…" he faltered, unable to find a descriptor worthy of her. But she seemed to understand, being in a similar predicament herself.

"Thank you," she smiled shyly. "So do you."

They walked together, both feeling better than they had all day. Her company was like a tonic, he realized contentedly. No matter how crappy his day had been, if he could end it next to her, he felt better. They sat next to one another in the limo, thankful for the darkness of the interior. Her hand slipped comfortably into the crook of his arm, and she fought the urge to rest her head on his shoulder.

She now wanted to go straight home even more than before, as she smelled his intoxicating scent. She liked him in the tux, but she couldn't help but think the thing would look better laying on her bedroom floor.

They arrived at the gala fairly quickly and began the long process of shaking hands and pretending to be interested in pointless conversations. Booth stayed at her side, but his mind wandered. Had she been that confident in him that she felt justified in telling Shawn Cook that Booth would help him? Or had it simply been a means to the end of this case that they both needed so badly? His mind was caught by the concept of ends and means, as he watched her interact gracefully with the ruling elite. And as she turned toward him and caught his attention with a dazzling smile, he felt something shift into place.

He wanted to be more than her partner. And he would do whatever it took to convince her to give him a chance. Even if what she needed most was time.

The evening progressed as they ate dinner and talked. They stayed so close to one another that it appeared to others as though they could actually be physically connected. By the time the dancing started, Brennan had been feeling Angela's interested gaze for some time.

"I think I'll be due for an interrogation tomorrow, Booth," she said quietly. He looked back at her in confusion, and she continued, "Angela has been watching us like an eagle for nearly an hour now."

He chuckled at her misuse of the phrase but didn't correct her. It was that kind of thing that made him adore her even more.

"Maybe we should go dance then? If she's going to be interrogating you, we may as well make it worth her time," he suggested with a roguish grin. She smiled back and nodded, taking his arm and following him toward the twirling couples.

Not for the first time that evening, Booth found himself staring down a man he'd caught ogling her. This had to be at least the twelfth time, different men on each occasion, and he was becoming increasingly frustrated with each one of them.

"How long do we really have to stay, Bones? We could call a cab and get out of here pretty soon right?" He glanced around them again, catching sight of yet another pair of hungry eyes. "Cause I gotta tell you, I'm getting a little tired of having to give so many guys the stare-down."

"I don't know what that means."

"The stare-down, you know... You've been checked out a good twelve times since we got here, and nearly half of the guys were practically drooling. Just about every man you've spoken to has flirted with you, even the old ones."

"Well to be honest, I hadn't noticed anyone flirting with me until you felt compelled to begin your 'stare-downs,' as you call them. I'm still not really sure what that means, but I assume you're referring to the very possessive way you've kept your hand on my back all evening and glowered at every male in the room," she said in good humor. "Do you know, I only ever seem to realize I'm being flirted with lately once I happen to notice that you are inexplicably frustrated with someone and staring at them like you're contemplating shooting them." She laughed at the ridiculousness of it.

He laughed a little too, but he was immediately preoccupied with her words. Knowingly or not, she had just admitted that she paid more attention to him than anyone else. He felt his chest expand a bit at the thought.

"I guess I should apologize for my behavior, but I'm not all that sorry. None of those guys deserve your attention, Temperance."

His use of her given name sent a tiny thrill all the way to her toes as they continued to dance through a song change. She wondered if he was implying that _he_ wanted to be the one to hold her attention. If that was the case, then mission accomplished. If anyone had asked her to name someone she'd spoken to that night, she doubted she'd have been able to think of even one.

It was extremely difficult not to kiss him as their bodies swayed together, as close as they'd been when they danced in Aurora, even though the couples around them were keeping a more reserved distance. She caught herself staring at his mouth longingly, and she forced her eyes up to meet his only to find that he was contemplating _her_ mouth in much the same way.

He noticed when her lips formed a smirk and his gaze jumped to meet hers. He grinned his charming smile in return and tilted his head in gesture toward the doors. She nodded, and they moved as one to collect their belongings. She was sure Angela at the very least was still watching them, but she avoided the temptation to confirm that by looking for her. Instead, she allowed Booth to help her with her wrap and followed him out into the night.

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They were quiet on the ride to her apartment, stealing glances and smiles at one another. Once again, Booth scrutinized each car in the structure as they passed, but saw no sign of trouble. They rode the elevator to her floor, standing side by side and leaning against the back wall. She was feeling her exhaustion even more now, and she slowly moved her head to rest on his shoulder, allowing her eyes to close briefly.

He felt a rush of satisfaction at her gesture and would have been content to stand there longer. But then the doors were opening, and they were moving again. As they stood in front of her door, she fumbled wearily with her keys for a brief moment. Booth smiled at her affectionately and decided they had waited long enough.

Brennan looked up at him as she felt herself being pulled gently into his arms, and her breath caught in the instant he brushed his lips against hers. She was taken aback by the gentle softness of his lips, especially since their last kiss had begun so frantically. And she moaned against him as he kissed her with dizzying proficiency.

She dropped her keys to the floor so that her hands were free to explore his vast chest and make their way to his neck. She pulled him for firmly against her, deepening the kiss. Her toes curled deliciously at the first touch of his tongue on hers, and he moaned at the contact. His arms were so tight around her that she would have had trouble breathing if she weren't holding her breath in the first place.

Gradually, their movements slowed, and they ended the kiss the way it had begun: soft and slow. He met her heated gaze and leaned his forehead down to rest against hers. Although she knew he was coming in anyway, Brennan opened her mouth to extend the invitation that would hopefully make her intentions very clear. However, before she could summon the words, the sound of his phone reached them from inside his pocket. He smiled at her regretfully and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead before answering it.

It was Charlie. Peter had been arrested.

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 **Thanks for reading! I love reviews like Booth loves pie!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: First let me say-I had way too much fun writing this chapter. I hope you all enjoy reading it just as much. It is shorter than some of my others, but still over 6K words. The next one is about the same size, and it just seemed like the right place to break. Chapter 7 was fun to write as well. I wasn't planning on posting this until tomorrow, but some of you seemed a bit frustrated at where I ended the last chapter, hehe.**

 **Thank you for your wonderfully kind words and encouragement!**

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Chapter 6

"Look, you can't come in there," Booth told her bracingly. He had assumed she wouldn't agree to stay home and wait for an update, but there was no way he was letting her in the same room with that bastard. They stood outside of the interrogation room, and Brennan looked back at him in disbelief.

"This is about _me_ , Booth. I should be in there."

"Yes, it _is_ about you. Which is exactly why you _can't_ be in there. I'm sorry. It's not really even my call though. Cullen said to let you watch from observation, but that's it." He didn't feel at all guilty for blaming his boss on this one, even though Booth wouldn't have let her in the room with Peter no matter what Cullen had said.

She huffed a sigh. "Fine. Will you at least put the earpiece on so I can help?"

"That I can do," he said, smiling reassuringly at her. He watched Brennan enter the observation room next door and shook his head at her nerve. A lot of women would feel intimidated by a guy who had hurt them badly enough to require a trip to the ER. _But not his Bones_.

Booth tucked the tiny speaker into his ear and inhaled deeply before opening the door, adopting a bland expression. It took more effort than usual. The moment he saw Peter, he began to tremble with suppressed fury. The jerk had the audacity to look him full in the face and lie.

"Why the hell am I here? I've done nothing wrong," Peter said curtly. The smell of alcohol that surrounded him was overpowering. He'd been picked up on a drunk and disorderly charge and processed through to the FBI when the arresting officer had read the BOLO.

"Oh, we're not really going to pretend you don't know exactly what's going on, are we? I gotta tell you, I'm really having a hard time finding that kind of patience right now," Booth answered, trying to keep his tone even.

"I just had a few drinks, that's all. Is that a federal crime now? Why am I at the FBI and not in the tank somewhere?"

"We both know the answer to that," Booth replied shortly. "I'd like to talk to you about your recent behavior regarding Dr. Temperance Brennan." Peter struggled to focus his eyes on him for a moment, then sneered.

"Oh yeah, I recognize you now. You're the one she replaced me with. What'd that bitch say about me? Cause whatever it was, it's bullshit."

Booth clenched the pencil in his hand below the table. He felt it snap in two and thought back to how Brennan had seen such a simple thing and used it to solve a murder. How could anyone not see how remarkable she was? Clearly the man in front of him had no idea, and it angered him even more.

"You've broken into her home on more than one occasion, you've staked out her place to watch her, and you injured her in a physical confrontation. I've got security tapes from that garage, from the hallway outside of her apartment. And I've got ER records and x-rays to back up the damage you did three weeks ago, not to mention medical evidence of the head injury you gave her four months ago."

Peter paled at his words, surprised that Brennan had gone to the ER. That wasn't like her. But he had heard her talk about her job enough to know that if she'd had x-rays taken, past damage would still be visible. Booth wore a satisfied expression, please at having gotten to Peter so quickly.

"So let's talk about that, shall we? I know you're not stupid enough to really think that you won't spend some time in jail after all of this, so tell me… What was your endgame, huh? Cause all you creepy asshole stalkers have an endgame. Going to try to convince her to give you another chance? Going to make her sorry for breaking up with you? Or for running too far away for you to get to her for months after you split up?"

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Brennan knew what he was doing, and she kept silent in his ear for the time being. But as she watched Peter listen to Booth's accusatory questions, she couldn't repress the shudder that overtook her. What had she ever seen in the man? Sure, she'd thought him charming at first, but she had thought that she'd been very clear in what she wanted from him. It had only ever been a physical thing for Brennan. She had explained that she valued her work, her independence, and her space above all else when they had first started seeing each other. He had claimed to understand. He had seemed perfectly civilized, and it wasn't until a few months later that she recognized his drinking for what it was. They started to argue more often, and as she had told Booth, it had culminated in a solid punch to her zygomatic.

She refocused her attention on the conversation again as Peter opened his mouth to respond to Booth's questions.

"I'm not saying a damn thing without my lawyer," Peter growled.

"That's fine," Booth said mildly. "I don't need a confession. We have plenty of evidence against you. I just wanted the chance to look you in the face again, since you've been too much of a coward since the last time. You remember, right? When I pulled you forcibly out of my partner's home and told you what would happen if anyone ever saw you near her again?"

" _Partner,"_ Peter scoffed irritably. "That's complete bullshit. You're fucking her; at least be honest about it. She disappeared for _days_ , and when she came back she had her travel bag with her and got out of _your_ car," Peter sneered. "Guess the slut finally learned to take a day off work, huh?"

Booth could hear Brennan's voice in his ear, but his brain didn't process the words. Because in the space of two seconds, Booth had Peter out of the chair and suspended slightly against the wall behind him. The door opened just as Booth drew back his fist, and he felt another hand stop it from making contact with Peter's face.

He realized then that Charlie had interceded, and Booth felt himself being pulled away forcibly. He shrugged Charlie's hands away and left the room, livid. He stood in the hallway with his hands braced on his hips and tried to slow his breathing. He heard a door open a few feet away and saw his partner step toward him tentatively. _Son of a bitch_ , he thought. Was she afraid of him now? Only a short time ago, she had told him that she respected him more than the law. Had he completely ruined her perception of him? He felt like a total hypocrite too-what he'd done in that room was _definitely_ not done out of respect for the law.

"Booth…" Brennan said softly. He gritted his teeth and looked at her, prepared to see her disapproval, even anger.

But as usual, she surprised him. There was no hint of criticism in her expression. Only concern.

"I'm sorry he said those things, Bones. And I'm sorry I let my temper get away from me."

"Stop," she told him firmly. "You were defending me. I can't be angry at you for that, not really. And I don't give a damn what he thinks about me… So long as _you_ don't think those things."

"How can you even think that?" Booth asked her, shocked. She didn't meet his eyes. "Bones, look at me." He waited until she complied before speaking again. "I know what's real, what's true. I know who you are. And I know that guy's delusional if he really believes any of the horrible things he said about you."

Brennan nodded, feeling grateful and yet undeserving of his praise. The door to the interrogation room opened then, and Charlie stepped out. Two junior agents entered the room in his place.

"Hey, man," he said, addressing Booth. "He's being charged with Breaking and Entering, Assault on a Federal Employee, and Harassment." Booth nodded, satisfied for the time being. The door opened again, and the two junior agents emerged, holding a very irate Peter between them.

He spotted Brennan immediately and began shouting.

"I knew you'd be here, Tempe. You'll figure it out eventually… We're supposed to be together! I can be what you need, I promise!"

Charlie snorted in disgust and moved slightly so that he stood between Booth and Peter as the latter was pulled away down the hall. Once the trio had disappeared around the corner, he turned back to Booth and his partner.

"Don't worry about it; he'll cool off after a while. But you know Cullen's gonna hear about this, Booth. You should probably tell him yourself first thing in the morning." Booth pursed his lips, and accepted the wisdom of Charlie's suggestion with a nod.

"Yeah, I know. Thanks, Charlie, I owe you one. If I'd actually hit him, I'd probably end up on suspension."

"No problem, Booth."

"Thank you, Agent Burns. You've been very helpful," Brennan spoke up. Charlie blinked a bit in surprise. His previous run-ins with the famous anthropologist hadn't been as dreadful as her interactions with some other agents, but neither had they been particularly pleasant.

"Not at all, Dr. Brennan, I'm happy to help." Booth saw the surprise register in the agent's eyes, followed by a hint of admiration.

"See you tomorrow, Charlie," Booth said, regaining the man's attention.

"Yup, sure thing. Night!"

They watched him walk away and looked back at each other. "I'll take you back home," he told her quietly. She nodded and followed him out of the building to his car. The ride was fairly silent, each of them preoccupied with their own thoughts. It was past midnight now, and they were both thoroughly exhausted. Booth wanted nothing more than to lay down and close his eyes.

Brennan seemed to be entertaining the same thoughts. She watched him through sleepy eyes for a moment before speaking.

"You look tired," she remarked. "If I were any better off, I would offer to drive."

"And I'd still refuse," he answered with the smile he saved just for her.

"Typical alpha male."

"You know it."

"Yes, that's why I said it," she answered in groggy confusion.

"Right… Well, I suppose there's no harm in you staying alone now," he commented with the tiniest hint of disappointment. Her eyes narrowed in response.

"It's so late Booth, and you're exhausted. You should stay one more night. You shouldn't be on the roads anyway, as tired as you are. Plus I'll just worry that you didn't make it home safely." Her argument was perfectly logical, but Booth didn't need it. She'd had him at 'stay one more night.'

"If you're sure you don't mind, Bones."

"Of course not."

"Alright then, I'll stay. Thanks." They reached her apartment building then, and she couldn't help but think back to the last time they had stood in front of her door, earlier that evening. Booth was extremely talented at kissing, and she found herself wondering how long she would be waiting to enjoy his skills again.

Once inside her apartment, he touched her arm gently to get her attention.

"Listen, I know we still need to talk about things… And I don't want to rush you in any way, really." His eyes reassured her, and she nodded before he continued. "As much as I would like to keep kissing you, I know my self-control is only going to go so far," he told her with a tiny smile. She returned it. "I just want to take things slow, ok? I think we both know that things are changing between us, and until we really figure out how to handle it, I'm going to do my best to keep things friendly and professional. Is that ok with you?"

"Yes, of course. I agree, that's probably for the best. I'm not so sure of my own self-control either," she admitted, grinning at him mischievously. She appreciated his desire to tread carefully. Brennan wasn't the type for serious relationships and hadn't been since a rather disastrous affair with a former professor. But she knew he was right about things changing, and the changes weren't limited to their relationship. She'd felt herself changing too, in a dozen different ways. And it scared her almost as much as it exhilarated her. Temperance Brennan wasn't accustomed to changing for anyone.

He smiled back at her, and moved toward her, placing a soft kiss against her cheek. She leaned into it slightly.

"Goodnight then."

"Goodnight, Booth," she answered softly, watching him enter the guest room.

Yes, Brennan typically didn't change for anyone. But she somehow didn't feel too opposed to the idea of changing for _him_.

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The following morning, Brennan filed a restraining order against Peter with DC Metro. Booth had badgered her into it, reminding her that Peter would probably be out on bail within the next couple of days. In the end, he had employed bribery. If she met his requirements, she could drive the SUV for a week. He wanted her to get the restraining order, to let him install a peephole in her front door, and to replace her tampered locks with better ones. Though Brennan actually had no issue with any of his demands, she played it up and got him to agree to letting her drive for not one but _three_ weeks.

She left the apartment feeling accomplished, kissing his cheek in farewell as he'd kissed hers the night before. _Partners could do that...right?_ She wasn't sure she'd ever seen any other agents do it, but she didn't trouble herself thinking too hard about it. Filing the paperwork at a nearby DC Metro precinct ended up taking less time than she'd expected. The young man assisting her turned out to be a fan of her book, and he promised to expedite the filing process.

When she entered the lab, Angela was waiting in her office. Brennan probably should have expected that, but so much had happened since she and Booth had left the gala that she hadn't given a single thought as to how she should answer her best friend's inevitable questions.

"You're _late_ ," she drew out the second word in a sing-song voice. Her cheshire grin stretched wide across her face, and Brennan knew exactly what Angela had assumed. She was almost sorry to disappoint her, not that she would have shared intimate details with her anyway. Not when it was Booth.

"I had some business at DC Metro this morning," she replied. Angela's face fell.

"Well _that's_ certainly not what I hoped you'd say."

Brennan smiled indulgently at her. "I had to take out a restraining order."

"Ah. Peter?"

"Yes," she answered, looking at her friend thoughtfully. "You know, I expected you to be harassing me for details about that some time ago."

"Well… don't get me wrong, I was shocked when Booth called me from the ER, especially since I had no clue Peter had _ever_ hurt you," her voice took on a dangerous tone and her eyes narrowed. "But, I figured you would talk to me about it when you were ready."

Brennan pursed her lips remorsefully. She knew that best friends shared things, as Angela was constantly reminding her. This situation reminded her that she wasn't always a good friend to Angela, and for that she felt guilty.

"I'm sorry. I didn't really mean to keep it from you, it's just… I didn't know how to bring it up I suppose. Not before Guatemala _or_ after. I wouldn't have told Booth either, but he showed up at my apartment right after Peter had broken in the first time, and there was no stopping him after that. I didn't even tell him about the stalking for a couple of weeks, and even then it wasn't by choice…" Brennan rambled absently, staring into space, and thus missing her friend's shocked expression.

"Whoa, back up a second there, Sweetie. 'Broke in the _first time_?' ' _Stalking?_ ' Are you serious?"

Brennan nodded, chagrined. Angela wasn't just disappointed now, she noted. Now she looked furious. Brennan chided herself for not telling her about all of this sooner. It hadn't dawned on her how much she'd been neglecting to share with her friend.

"Ok, you're going to start from the beginning and tell me everything," Angela said in her no-excuses tone.

So she did. She told Angela about the relationship problems she had with Peter, explained that he had indeed been the reason she'd gone to Guatemala, and detailed each encounter she'd had with Peter since returning. By the time she was finished, Angela's mouth had gaped open and her eyes were filled with concern.

"Wow. Just...wow. And how does Booth play into this?"

"Well, like I said, he showed up unexpectedly as Peter was leaving, the day after I got back from Guatemala…"

"When he gave you a concussion, and you hit him with a baseball bat," Angela supplied dryly.

"Right. And you already knew about the ER. He stayed with me that night…" Brennan stopped, unsure of how much she really wanted Angela to know just yet. She decided to fast forward rather than dwell on that first night together. "And then after we got back from taking that case in Washington state, he took me home from the airport and noticed Peter watching us in the garage. He was livid," Brennan said, remembering. "He forced me to admit how many times I'd seen Peter there, and he figured out that my locks had been tampered with again. So he put a BOLO out for Peter and refused to leave me alone until he got arrested, which happened late last ni-"

"Wait, he's been staying at your place since you got back from Aurora?" Brennan was sure that there was some kind of colloquial phrase about eyes popping out of someone's head. The descriptor seemed to fit Angela perfectly at the moment. "Oh my god, Sweetie! Did anything happen? Because let me tell you, watching you two at the gala last night was turning _me_ on. He glared at every guy you spoke to, and I think his hand was touching some part of you from the moment you walked through the door to the moment you left."

Brennan felt her cheeks warm slightly. She had noticed those things too, but played it down, wanting to keep certain things to herself. "I'm sure you're imagining things, Angela," she answered weakly.

"Oh yeah right! You know exactly what I'm talking about," she accused. Her eyes glittered excitedly then. "Has he kissed you?"

Brennan hesitated, trying to decide rapidly if the kissing should be a secret. But her hesitation was enough of an answer for Angela.

"Oh my god, he did! I _told_ you he liked you! Have you slept with him?"

"No, Ange…" There was no hesitancy in her answer this time, and Angela looked a bit disappointed. "Look, I really can't talk about it, ok? Just give me some time to work through things. I promise that if anything big happens, I'll tell you. Maybe not right away, but I won't intentionally keep it from you. Ok?"

"Anything _else_ , you mean. Because you've kept quite a few enormous things from me, Bren."

"I know," Brennan answered, chewing her lip lightly. "I really am sorry. I just don't know what is supposed to be private and what is alright to share sometimes, you know?"

"Yeah, I know, Sweetie. And actually, I'm proud of you for that one. With most guys I'd know intimate anatomical details by now," she teased. Brennan huffed a tiny laugh and rolled her eyes.

Angela got up to leave, but turned around almost immediately. "Hey! I know exactly how you can make it up to me!"

"Make what up to you?"

"Ugh, not telling me about all of the drama until now, of course." She continued on without waiting for Brennan to speak. "You're going to come with me to this awesome club I heard about tonight."

Brennan's refusal was immediate. "Ange, no… I have _so_ much to do; I could stay at the lab for days without sleep and still not be caught up."

"Then one more night away isn't going to make that much difference," Angela pointed out happily. She began to walk toward the door, not giving Brennan any more opportunity to argue. "Be ready to leave at seven, we'll grab something to eat on the way!" She breezed out the door, leaving Brennan feeling a bit frazzled. Angela's idea of nighttime entertainment didn't exactly interest her, but she did feel guilty for neglecting her friend. Brennan contemplated the files waiting on her desk and groaned.

Maybe she could come up with an excuse before seven…

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"A cloud of meth covered the dance floor," Agent Furst told him, looking at Brennan and Angela. "I think they've inhaled quite a lot."

Booth smiled, amused. "Are you two _high_?"

"Only by accident, so it doesn't count," Angela admitted, chewing her fingertips in a twitchy sort of way. Brennan's eyes were dilated and darting around the room too quickly for her to actually be seeing anything. _Bones is high_ , Booth thought. _This was bound to be interesting._ He gazed at her solicitously, and she suddenly ran to cut off a police officer who was approaching the remains.

"Wait! Get away from the remains!"

"Bones, simmer down."

"They're trying to compromise the crime scene!" Brennan insisted.

He rolled his eyes a bit, and focused on the two men approaching them. One walked with a cane and had a distinct 'man-in-charge' air about him. His companion spoke first.

"How long is this gonna take?"

"Who the hell wants to know?" Booth answered back gruffly.

"I'm sorry, he works for me. I'm Randall Hall, I run this place," said the man with the cane.

"You run this place, Mr. Hall? Interesting, you know, cause we found some drugs on-"

"Found them! We found em," Brennan cut in wildly.

"Alright, we found some drugs on the dead guy. We're gonna want to know where they came from, why he had them-"

" _Why?_ " She interrupted again. He shot her a look of frustration this time.

"Why he had them," Booth repeated. "Any idea who he is?" He silences Brennan with another look before she can interrupt again.

Hall answered him with a dubious expression, "The guy barely looks human. What makes you think I'd recognize him?" _Good point,_ Booth thought wryly. He turned back to Brennan, who was gazing at the mummy with starry eyes.

"Bones, how does something like this happen?" Booth asked, trying not to smile at her elated expression. He pointed to the mummy as he asked, and she quickly twisted his arm away from the remains. He winced slightly.

"Well, the Egyptians would give the body a cedar oil enema and then rinse it with wine and cover it with salt," she said rapidly. "But I don't think that's what happened here."

"Bones, you are totally wasted," he told her, not sure whether to laugh or be irritated. But before he could say another word, she had spotted Zack descending the stairs toward them, and she was gone.

"Zack! Zack! Zack! Come here! Come here!" She put her hands on his shoulders and forced him toward the remains. "Isn't this a beautiful specimen of mummification?"

Zack looked to Booth in befuddlement. "What's going on?"

"Let's just say your boss inhaled," Booth answered sardonically. And she was still talking.

"See how perfectly dried and preserved the skin is? You don't find something like this every day."

Booth closed his eyes and prayed for patience.

"You seem a bit tense, there Booth," Angela said with glazed eyes and a smirk. "What's wrong? You all worked up because you got called out of a date or something?"

"No," he replied tersely, his eyes still focused on Brennan, who had turned toward him when Angela spoke.

"Ouch. Well maybe you're just lonely and bitter…"

"Shut up, Angela," he ground out.

"Awwwwww," she and Brennan chorused. But even under the influence, Brennan's spacey eyes communicated silently that _she_ knows he's not been all that lonely of late. Booth leveled an amused glare at her, but chose to re-focus on the case at hand.

"Can we just stick to business here? How long before you can ID him?"

"Well, I'm not at all tired, so I'm sure I can stay up all night and work." She replied at top speed. "Zack, we have to be careful removing him; he's very dry and brittle." And then her eyes were dreamy again as she brushed cobwebs away from the remains. "My first modern mummy…"

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 _This is getting out of hand_ , Booth thought nervously. He knew he needed to get her out of there the first time she giggled. _Giggled_. She had given Zack a few instructions and then gone to stand near Angela, who couldn't seem to wipe the delirious grin from her face.

"He has cartoon characters on his _underwear_ ," he heard Brennan whisper loudly.

"How do you know?!" Angela failed to whisper back.

"I saw them," and she paused to giggle like a ten-year-old. "But I probably wasn't supposed to tell."

"When did you see them?"

"When he slept with me."

"WHAT?!" Angela shrieked.

"When he slept with me," Brennan repeated, a little slower. The two of them tittered again, looking at him speculatively.

"Hey, it's not what you think, Angela," he insisted defensively. "She's talking about the night she went to the ER." Then he turned and gave Brennan a stern look before whispering heatedly, "Bones, _stop_ talking about my underwear."

She grinned guiltily at him before Angela demanded her attention with more non-whispering.

"Did he sleep in your _bed_?"

"Yes he did. And I'm pretty sure he enjoyed it _very much_." The two of them dissolved into more giggling, and Booth's face felt as though it had caught fire. Behind him, he heard a distinct snicker and turned to stare down an FBI forensic tech who had apparently overheard the conversation. The man gave him a tiny smile of compassion, thinking that if he'd shared a bed with the beautiful scientist, he'd have rather enjoyed it too.

"That's it, I'm getting you guys out of here," Booth told them both. "Zack and the rest of the techs can finish up and get the body to the lab." He paused for a moment, trying to decide who to call for Angela. If he was going to be on intoxicated-squint-watch tonight, he didn't want to be outnumbered. After a brief moment, he decided that Hodgins was the most logical choice. The only other person in her life that he knew well enough to call was Goodman, and he very much disliked the idea of _that_ conversation.

Hodgins answered the phone groggily, and Booth explained what had happened. He expected more argument from the man, especially given the time, but to his pleasant surprise, Hodgins simply asked for the address and said he'd be there soon. Booth ended the call, glad that they would be leaving soon.

By the time Hodgins got there, Brennan and Angela were singing a racy version of what sounded like a campfire song. Zack had stopped trying to keep a straight face some time ago, but worked diligently with the techs to clear the scene. Upon seeing Hodgins, Angela collapsed against him happily. He gave her a startled look, but took her behavior in stride and walked her back to his car.

"Come on, Bones. Let's get you home."

"Oh, good! Are we having a sleepover again?" Brennan asked him excitedly. Booth groaned as a few techs burst into laughter behind them. Brennan heard and looked back. "Did I say something funny? I can be very amusing…"

"Yup, you're a riot, Bones."

"I don't know what that means."

Booth rolled his eyes but let that one go. As he helped her get into the car, she ran a hand boldly up his chest. Booth's eyes widened in shock. Was she really doing this _here_ of all places?

"You're a very nice man," she told him with a hint of a slur.

"Uh, thanks." He moved away from her to shut the door and circle around to the driver's side.

"Hey, it's supposed to be my turn to drive!"

"You've got to be kidding."

"I guess you're right. That would probably be unwise…" She gazed through the windshield with a blankly content expression. "I've never been exposed to meth before. It's quite disconcerting. But I suppose that could also be the alcohol I consumed before the fight started."

" _Fight?"_ Booth said, startled. "I thought somebody fell into the wall and put a hole in it."

"They did, but that happened because Angela and I got into a fight with some mean girls."

"Uh huh. And just how much alcohol did you have before that?" She hummed a bit, thinking back.

"Well, some guy bought us a couple of shots, and then the bartender gave us an extra round. And then we ordered a couple of mixed drinks…"

"Shit," Booth muttered. He was pretty sure she didn't need the ER again, but he did think that maybe he should google the combined effects of meth and alcohol, just to be prepared.

A warm little hand on his thigh derailed his train of thought. He glanced at her in alarm and saw Brennan gazing at him with a similarly dreamy look as the one she had worn when looking at the mummy. He took a deep breath and tried to talk his body down. _She's high. Doing anything but taking her home and tucking her into bed would be taking advantage of her,_ he thought with determination.

"Bones, you've got to stop that," he told her firmly.

"But you seem to like it…" she murmured, brushing her fingertips brazenly against his sudden erection.

"Christ, Bones," he moaned. "You _have_ to stop." She sighed in response, but removed her hand. She studied him through her glazed eyes for several moments.

"You're a very attractive man, Booth. Beautiful, even." Booth smiled at her unfiltered honesty but groaned at her word choice.

"Women are beautiful, Bones. Men are handsome."

"That's a ridiculous thing to argue over," she told him confidently. "Both genders can be described by both adjectives. Did you know that before the 1940s, boys were generally dressed in pink and girls in blue? And up until the early 20th century, it was common practice for both boys and girls to be dressed in white cotton skirts until the age of six, which is also when they got their first haircuts," she rattled off happily.

"You know, most people wasted on alcohol and meth would be passed out by now," he told her dryly. "And here you are, educating me about children's clothing through the ages." He chuckled fondly at her, glad to hear her sounding much more like herself.

"Oh, I don't think the meth is affecting me anymore. It really wasn't that much. It wore off fairly quickly. I think I'm simply still feeling the lingering effects of the alcohol I consumed."

"Ah," he said, thinking back to the first time he'd heard her giggle with Angela. "That makes sense I guess. _Giggling_ _like a schoolgirl_ isn't generally something people high on meth do," he teased her. If he was expecting a rebuke, he was to be disappointed. She merely let out another merry giggle and winked at him. He laughed in response, and shook his head.

By the time he got her out of the car and into the elevator, she was looking sleepy. She leaned heavily against him, walking with her eyes closed and allowing him to guide her gently. She laughed softly as Booth fumbled with her keys and dropped them-twice-because he was struggling to keep her upright. But he finally managed to open the door and lead her inside.

When he turned to lock the door behind them, she moved away toward the couch and collapsed onto it, mumbling into a throw pillow about how soft it was.

"Bones, come on. I'd let you sleep there, but you still have traces of meth on your clothes." She grunted something unintelligible in response, but didn't move. Booth sighed in consternation, weighing his options. There really was only one thing for it. He was going to have to help her change.

He leaned over the couch and lifted Brennan gently, settling her into a bridal-carry position. Her head rolled backward, but her arm snaked upward to circle his neck. She gave him a huge, beautiful smile, and Booth felt his heart clench. Once inside her bedroom, he sat her gently on the bed and turned toward her dresser.

"Where are your pajamas, Bones?" She grinned again and pointed vaguely in the direction of the chest of drawers. He gave her a long-suffering sigh and began to open drawers in search of something for her to wear. _Something a little more than a skimpy pair of shorts and a bra_ , he thought ruefully. This would be hard enough as it was.

He was reciting saints before he even got to the third drawer. The first had contained socks and belts, but the second had been full of satin and lace. He closed it quickly, trying not to see too much. The third drawer was pajamas, and he pulled out a tank top and a pair of sleep pants. When he turned back to her, she was still sitting up, but swaying heavily. Her eyes were closed as though she was already asleep.

"Ok, Bones. I'm just going to help you change… unless you think you can handle it?" She raised her eyebrows, but didn't open her eyes to look at him or her mouth to respond one way or the other. He clenched his jaw, going back to his mental list of saints, and pulled the dark tank top off of her. He tossed it into the corner and pulled the clean one over her head, determinedly _not_ looking at her breasts. Though that was practically impossible. His saints chastised him for his body's response.

Booth eased her gently onto her back and began pulling off her pants. He wanted to close his eyes, but he guessed that might actually make it worse. He wouldn't know where to put his hands. _Partners_ , he thought repeatedly. _Partners, partners, partners._ But he glanced at down at her then and swore quietly. She was wearing a pair of lace boy shorts in a deep teal that practically made her skin glow. His mouth watered hungrily, and he mentally shook himself.

Moving more quickly now, he slipped each of her legs into the pajama pants and raised her hips gently to pull them up. He looked back at her face, but she seemed to be asleep now. Booth took a few moments to collect himself, now that she was fully dressed again. Once composed, he reached up to her hair and gently pulled it out of its ponytail, moving his hands through the dark tresses indulgently, a soft smile on his face. When his eyes moved back to her face, he was startled to find her looking at him. She merely stared at him contentedly for a moment, looking more at peace than he'd ever seen her when she was awake.

Brennan gave him another warm smile and whispered, "Thank you." Her eyes slid closed again before he finished his, "You're welcome," and he moved her carefully up onto her pillow. She exhaled deeply as he covered her with the blanket that had previously failed to separate them in their sleep, and he heard her breathing even out smoothly.

Booth leaned down to press a gentle kiss to her forehead and hummed a "Goodnight, Bones," against her skin. He switched off the light and left her bedroom and bathroom doors open for her before taking his accustomed post in her guest bedroom. She would be feeling horrible tomorrow, he knew. But he couldn't help the satisfied smile that graced his lips as he remembered how trusting of him she had been. There hadn't been a trace of fear or reserve in her demeanor, and that fact humbled him beyond words. For someone who had been through as much as she had, it made complete sense to him that she had difficulty connecting with people. But that didn't seem to apply to him, he thought with quiet exhilaration. She trusted him to respect her even in a vulnerable state; to take care of her when she was truly unable to do so herself. _Though she would certainly never admit to that_ , he thought with a grin.

And in that moment of peaceful happiness, he finally allowed his exhaustion to overcome him and drifted into a deep sleep.

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 **Reviews make the morning come faster... ;)**


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay, so this is another shorter one. Lots of fluffy sweetness and some forward movement on the situation with Peter. I was asked if BB will get together soon, and the answer is Yes. The rating for this fic will change with chapter 10. Some other things have to happen first. Namely, Howard Epps and Michael Stires. Enjoy! Ch 8 will be up in a couple days.**

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Chapter 7

When he awoke the next morning, he was surprised to feel a slender pair of arms around his midsection. Booth had a brief moment of panic at the thought that he might have somehow taken advantage of her without meaning to, but a quick survey of his surroundings confirmed that he was still in her guest bedroom. _He simply wasn't alone_.

He rolled over slowly and carefully within the circle of her arms, so as not to disturb her, then glanced at the clock. It was still early. As much as Booth could hope that she would take the day off to recover, he knew her better. He gazed at her sleeping face, looking lovely and untroubled in the dim light of the morning that filtered through the curtain. Carefully draping his arm over hers, he let his hand rest on the exposed skin between her shoulder blades. His fingers traced tiny circles over her soft skin, and she sighed in her sleep.

Booth had no idea how long they laid there, snuggling as close together as a committed couple would do. And though he was still tired, he forced himself to stay awake, slightly unsure if she would even remember climbing into bed with him. He didn't want her to get the wrong idea and assume something inappropriate had happened between them.

 _Of course,_ he told himself, _cuddling in bed together was certainly not appropriate partner behavior._ But he was powerless to resist the opportunity. He leaned his head toward her and breathed her in. Her scent was intoxicating, and he knew that he would recognize it anywhere.

The sound of his breath drawing inward roused her slowly, and he watched her face as she became aware of her surroundings. But he didn't move an inch, and surprisingly, neither did she. Brennan looked up at him with a countenance which assured him that she knew exactly where she was and how she got there. This amazed him even more.

"Good morning," he told her with a tentative smile. She returned it immediately.

"Morning," she replied. Then in a move nearly as surprising as the one that brought her into his bed in the first place, she tucked her head beneath his chin and moved her hand along the smooth contours of his back, just as he had done shortly before. His mind reeled. Had she forgotten their agreement to talk about things before moving forward sexually? That didn't seem likely. And if he was being honest with himself, the contact they were enjoying at the moment wasn't very sexual in nature. It was _intimate_.

"So… not that I'm complaining, but… when exactly did you come in here?"

"I'm not sure what time it was. But you were definitely asleep," she answered. Her voice was slightly muffled against his neck, and he couldn't repress the shudder that passed through him at the feel of her breath ghosting over his skin.

"I'm sorry I didn't wake up," he apologized. "Was something wrong?"

"No, not really… Well, kind of…" she trailed off. Booth slowed the movements of his hand on her back to focus on her words. "You seemed to be having a nightmare," she confided quietly. He stiffened in her arms, but relaxed a half second later.

"I'm sorry about that, Bones. I've been told that I… don't experience my nightmares silently," he phrased carefully.

"That is very true," she answered softly. "I tried to wake you, but you didn't respond to me until I hugged you. You calmed down then, but you wouldn't let me remove my arms. So I stayed."

Booth was humbled beyond words. Nothing that came to his mind seemed to be sufficient to convey his feelings, so he settled for squeezing to him a little tighter. She reciprocated, breathing him in as deeply as he had inhaled her just minutes ago.

"Thanks, Bones."

"It's quite alright. You are always making sure nothing happens to me. I figured I owed you the same courtesy, even if the threat was in your mind."

Their lips curved upward in identical, unseen smiles of joy.

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They had laid there cuddled around one another until it became absolutely necessary to get up and prepare for work. Booth left to shower and change at his place, kissing her cheek again with a soft goodbye as he went. _Cheek kissing was starting to become their thing_ , he thought with a smirk. It didn't bother him though. He would take whatever she was willing to give.

They met at the lab nearly an hour later, and he strolled in carrying a cup of coffee made to her preference and the blueberry bagels she liked from his favorite coffee shop. Brennan was only slightly hungover that morning, contending with a headache that wasn't half as bad as the one her concussion had given her. Angela on the other hand looked like she would have preferred to be somewhere-anywhere-else at the moment. Her skin was a bit clammy looking and her eyes seemed to indicate that she might not be entirely present mentally.

Brennan took her coffee from Booth with a sweet smile of thanks. He returned it immediately, holding the bag containing her bagels toward her.

"I know you don't like to eat first thing in the morning, but you need something in your stomach," he told her. He held his breath and waited for her argument, but it never came. She accepted the bag with a soft "Thanks," and carried it over to one of the desks on the platform.

"Crystal meth is made from cold medicine, lye, and the strike pads from matchbooks. The body was not designed to deal with that kind of assault," Hodgins told them ruefully. He looked a bit worse for wear this morning as well, though Brennan couldn't understand why.

"So I'm finding out," she replied in a low voice, sipping her coffee slowly.

"Chamomile tea? It's very soothing."

"No, I just need your results."

"How about a stick to pry the monkey off your back?" Brennan shot him a look of contempt as Angela spoke up from behind her.

"Are you sure you need me here?" Her tone was whiny, and Hodgins glared at her.

"Don't even go there," he told her. "If _I_ have to be here after last night, then so do you."

"Why, what happened to _you_ last night?" Brennan asked, confused.

"Well, let's see. I was called out of my bed after midnight to pick up my very high co-worker who couldn't stop laughing long enough to give me her address so that I could take her home. When I asked to look at it on her driver's license, she informed me that she was keeping her ID and credit cards in the ' _titty bank_ ' and that I was welcome to make a withdrawal." Hodgins ears glowed brilliantly.

"Wow," Booth said awkwardly.

"I'm not done," Hodgins interrupted snappishly. "As soon as I got her to her apartment and convinced her to shower and change out of her meth encrusted clothing, she started singing so loudly in the shower that her neighbor came and knocked on the door to yell at _me_. So after she got dressed, she insisted on showing me some of her artwork right? And the next thing I know, she's begging me to let her paint me naked and trying to take my clothes off. I eventually convinced her it wasn't a good idea, but then she had switched gears to demanding Chinese take-out at 3 a.m. and telling me that she would cry if I didn't let her stay up and watch the sunrise."

"Oh stop complaining, Hodgins," Angela told him with a glare. "That was the most fun you've had in months, and you know it. As I recall, you seemed to find my predicament pretty freaking hilarious."

Hodgins didn't reply, choosing to merely shake his head and turn his attention back to the remains. He shared his findings thus far, and Brennan thanked him before grabbing her bagels and heading toward her office. Booth followed, telling her that he planned to set up a meeting with the club owner as soon as they had an ID. His tone implied that he would like her to join him.

"I really need to take Zack back to the crime scene for another sweep, but if I can come to the interview I will," she told him, taking a bite of her bagel.

"Ok. How long do you think the ID will take?" Booth asked her.

"Not long to get a fingerprint, but after that, it will depend on finding a match of course."

"Wait, how are you going to get a fingerprint off a mummy?"

"Oh, it's actually quite fascinating," she said excitedly. "I'm rehydrating the hand so that the skin can easily be removed, and then-"

"You know what, actually, I think I'll just leave that part to you, huh?" Booth looked nauseated and made a conscious effort to breathe deeply.

"Oh...ok, sorry," she said guiltily. She berated herself for making him uncomfortable again, chewing her bottom lip apprehensively.

"It's ok, it's just… you know, I just ate breakfast," he reassured her. Booth hated when she got that look of insecurity on her face. And he especially hated being the one to put it there.

"I feel like I might owe you an apology for last night, Booth. Until hearing Hodgins describe Angela's behavior, I didn't fully realize how troublesome I must have been," she told him earnestly.

"No worries, Bones," he said, smiling at her fondly. "It sounds like Hodgins had a harder time of it than I did."

"Really? That's somewhat surprising as I've been told that I'm rather tactile and loquacious when intoxicated"

Booth shifted uncomfortably in his seat, shrugging dismissively. "Well… even so, it's not like you kept me awake til dawn asking for Chinese food," he answered jokingly.

"I suppose so," she conceded, grateful that he didn't seem to want to talk about her behavior. She remembered bits and pieces, and it was enough to know that she'd perhaps made some poor choices. She recalled telling him that he was beautiful and arguing with him about the term. And she _definitely_ remembered touching him. Heat flooded her cheeks as she thought of where her hand had been less than twelve hours ago. A glance at Booth's face told her that he was remembering too. But his expression was one of a man struggling to maintain control.

"Anyway, let me know when you get the ID. And be careful back out at the crime scene. It's a public place, but it's still a homicide that we're investigating," he reminded her.

"Yes, I know, Booth," she responded evenly, successfully resisting the urge to roll her eyes at his alpha male obsession with her safety. He wasn't fooled.

"Don't get all moody; I just want you to be cautious, that's all," Booth reprimanded lightly as he turned to leave. "And make sure you finish your bagel."

She opened her mouth to deliver a sassy retort, but he was gone.

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The case moved fairly quickly once the ID was confirmed as Roy Taylor, a local hip hop DJ. The secondary sweep of the crime scene had yielded evidence that a woman had been behind the wall with the victim at time of death. The evidence, a belly button ring, also tied the woman to a rival DJ who worked with the club owner. Booth and Brennan went to interview him but left with still more questions.

In keeping with their agreement, Brennan was driving, and the tone of Booth's bickering was perhaps a bit more heated than it would have been otherwise. It wasn't that he was a misogynist, he thought irritably, he just preferred to be able to leave the small space when he needed to. Being kept in a small room for weeks as a prisoner would do that to anyone, certainly.

He offered another possible explanation for the murder, and she looked at him in skeptical amusement.

"You should write fiction," she told him with only a small degree of sarcasm. Some of his scenarios could have easily been worked into her new book.

"What? It's reasonable."

"It's not based on evidence, it's conjecture."

"Look I'm positing a scenario. We've been through this before," he said, his tone growing more frustrated.

"Yeah, and it always seems to be a waste of time. Now finding a marker on a bone-"

"No… You know, I think I need a vacation. I think you do too," he told her sternly. He wondered if she ever took time off from work to do anything other than simply a different kind of work.

"Well, I'm not the one who's snippy."

"Snippy?" He parroted with a laugh. "What are you, like seventy?"

"See what I mean? I think you should find a nice relaxing place to go on vacation. Somewhere you can get a massage, maybe do some yoga…"

"I don't do yoga. Push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups. That's what I do," he said firmly.

"Yeah, that's more cardiovascular. Yoga deals more with-"

"Why exactly are we talking about this?" Booth asked with a hand in the air.

"Because you're tense."

"Because you're telling me to do yoga," he answered, with what he hoped was the appropriate level of manly disgust.

"Are you just bothered that you have to let me drive?" Brennan asked, concealing a tiny smile.

"No, it's fine. But don't think I don't realize I got played in that deal."

"I don't know what that means," she answered untruthfully.

"Yes you do. You knew exactly what you were doing." His voice had softened, remembering the conversation.

"Then why did you fall for it?" Brennan gave a low chuckle. He was silent for just a second too long before answering, and she looked at him curiously.

"Because I thought that if I said no, you would end up refusing to do _any_ of things necessary to keep you safe." He looked at her as if daring her to deny it, and Brennan smiled gently at him.

"Actually, I would have done it all anyway." His face registered surprise and disbelief, and she continued shyly. "Your requests were logical, and… and I don't like that I cause you stress."

"No, Bones. It's not _you_ that causes me stress. Don't think like that." She opened her mouth to argue her point, but he held up a hand to stop her. "The situation with Peter is stressing me out, because I care about you. That's not your fault." Brennan contemplated this response briefly and nodded.

"I still think you should consider a vacation," she told him, the smile returning to her face. "You could take the weekend and go somewhere relaxing."

"Well, as nice as that sounds, I have Parker this weekend. Which is not _relaxing_ , but is better than any vacation," he answered her with an eager smile.

"That's great!" Brennan was relieved that he had been the one to bring up his son. Their last conversation about the little boy had been tense, and she had gotten the impression that Parker, or rather the limited time Booth got to spend with him, was a sore spot with her partner.

"Yeah, the last time I talked to him he had a huge list of things he wants to do." She smiled to see him so happy.

"What sorts of things do you do together?" Brennan was genuinely interested. She hadn't been around children much to speak of, and she was trying to picture him in a fatherly role.

"Well, we play a lot… I mean, he's four. Toys and playgrounds are his primary interests at this point. But we go to the zoo sometimes, the movies, run around on the Mall or at the park by my place." As he spoke, Booth's mood became lighter and the urge to get out of the car that he'd been fighting had dissipated. Brennan listened as his voice took on a warm, affectionate tone while he talked about his son. Booth was a good man, and she knew instinctively that he was a good father as well. A man whose face lit up that way at the thought of his son obviously loved his child very much. There were things about his situation that she didn't fully understand yet, but she hoped that he would confide in her eventually.

"He sounds like a very lucky little boy to have a father who loves him so much," she told him honestly.

Booth lowered his head with a smile and thanked her. He moved his hand to change the radio station then, only to find that his usual favorite preset had been changed to the kind of rap music favored by their murder victim. He looked at her in mock consternation.

"You switched my music."

She responded with an innocent expression that melted quickly into a gloating smile. Booth couldn't suppress a grin of his own and nodded in defeat.

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Brennan continued to drive them to and from several suspect interviews, and she watched him curiously from the corner of her eye each time. Booth seemed mildly uncomfortable, but there was something else that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Perhaps he did need some time off, she mused.

Booth had left the lab to interview the man who worked for Randall Hall, and Brennan continued to oversee the investigation with Zack. Angela found her in her office a short time later, and Brennan looked up expectantly.

"Do you have anything new?" Brennan asked her hopefully.

"Not yet. I just noticed that Booth has been a little cranky with this case. Everything okay with you guys?" _She doesn't know that we kissed,_ Brennan reminded herself. _Twice._

"Yes, things are pretty much the same since Peter got arrested," she lied awkwardly, then hurried on. "But I know what you mean. I told him he should think about taking some time off actually."

"That's a great idea, Sweetie," Angela gushed, unfooled by her best friend's attempt at misdirection. Something had changed, and she knew it. Brennan was a terrible liar and always had been. "He deserves a vacation. And _you_ should go with him."

Brennan's eyes widened, and she sputtered a bit. "Angela, even if going on a vacation was possible for either of us right now, it would negate the purpose of trying to get away from work. Not to mention it would be completely inappropriate because we're partners."

Angela snorted derisively. "Right. And the way you were dancing and looking at each other at the gala the other night was completely normal partner-like behavior." Brennan's mouth gaped open and closed as she tried to summon a logical response. Angela didn't wait. "Or sleeping in your bed in his cartoon character underwear, now _that_ is something I hear a lot of FBI guys do with their partners these days."

Brennan's cheeks reddened. She'd hoped Angela's intoxication had allowed her to forget that particular detail. She drew in a deep breath. "Point taken, Ange. But I still can't take a trip with Booth."

"Oh, come _on._ You guys should be at Stage Two at the very least," Angela said with a rueful shake of her head. If _she_ had the opportunity to jump Booth, she damn well would have done it by now.

"I don't know what that means."

"You know, relationship stages. One: spend the night. Two: spend the weekend. Three: exchange keys. Four: sexy weekend getaway. Five: extended vacation, inevitably followed by Six. Move in together."

"I'm an anthropologist. I know the stages of everything, and you made that up."

"I did not."

"Yes you did," Brennan volleyed back. _Completely ridiculous_ , she thought dismissively. And yet she couldn't quite ignore the fact that they had indeed spent more than one consecutive night together. _Four, actually_ , she thought to herself. _Plus the one night after the ER. Does that count as a weekend? Or even two?_ Brennan's inner monologue was interrupted by her friend.

"And that daydreamy look on your face has nothing to do with how many times Booth has stayed at your place, right?" Angela snickered knowingly. "The only problem, honey, is that there is supposed to be sex involved. And I'm pretty sure that if you guys were doing anything of that persuasion, it would be written all over your face."

Brennan rolled her eyes, and Angela knew she'd hit her mark. They hadn't had sex yet. _But she definitely wants to_ , Angela thought proudly.

"You really should get on with it, Bren. Good guys like Booth are few and far between." And with that, she strolled out of the office, hoping that Brennan would take her advice sooner rather than later.

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By the time they closed the case of the mummy in the wall, they had solved not one murder but two. The nightclub owner had killed both the DJ and his girlfriend and had left matching marks to the bones of each victim with his cane.

Booth and Brennan were both enjoying the now-familiar feeling of satisfied accomplishment as they headed to Wong Foo's for an early dinner. Booth was due to pick up Parker afterward, but spending time with each other had become a habit after cases were closed, and neither of them wanted to skip it tonight.

As she drove, she again watched Booth sneakily. He had a neutral expression on his face, but his hand was gripping the support bar on the door. A closer look revealed a vein throbbing in his neck, a clenched jaw, and heavy breathing. It concerned her, and she couldn't resist the question anymore.

"Booth… What's wrong?"

"Huh? Nothing, Bones. We solved the case, Sid's gonna feed us some great food, I get to see Parker in a couple hours…"

"Yes, those are indeed all positive things, but you're clearly in distress. Your heart rate and respiratory patterns are elevated, you've been clenching your jaw as well as the door… You were doing it earlier too, but I didn't ask then. Now I want to know. What's upsetting you?"

Booth made a conscious effort to unclench and take a deep breath. He honestly hadn't realized he was showing outward signs of discomfort. And he knew that she would keep asking until she got an answer, so there was really nothing for it.

"I… I have a hard time in enclosed spaces ever since… the Army. It's why I don't wear a seatbelt either. When I drive, it helps that I have control over when I can get out, and it doesn't affect me like this. I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd noticed."

She looked at him in alarmed concern and immediately pulled over to the curb. Their bodies leaned forward from the momentum after the car had stopped. She reached over to unbuckle her seatbelt and saw his confused expression.

"Get out," she told him, opening her door. He recovered from his shock slowly and watched as she walked around the front of the vehicle to the passenger side. He had reached for the handle, but she pulled it open first and stood before him expectantly. Booth found his voice then.

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting for you to get out of my seat," she answered simply. "You're driving."

He looked at her in amazement. Booth knew that she had viewed her skillfully won driving privileges as a minor victory for her own independence. And yet here she was, giving it back. The decision had taken her less than five seconds to make. He stepped out of the vehicle toward her and swept her into a hug that lifted her feet off the pavement.

Brennan hadn't expected that, and after a moment, she returned the hug fiercely, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and lowering her face to the base of his neck. He held held her that way for what could have been hours but was in reality probably only a minute or two. The traffic whizzed by them, and a horn honked once, but they were oblivious. He said a muffled 'thank you' into her hair and set her back down carefully.

Brennan very much wanted to kiss him, but their earlier conversation was fresh in her mind. Until they figured out how to handle this change between them, they needed to resist the temptation to move things to the next level.

That conversation was coming back to him as well, and he wanted to kick himself for setting those particular guidelines for them, even if he knew it was the right thing to do. He apologized guiltily and shared a rueful smile with her before walking around the car to get behind the wheel.

Once he had pulled back into traffic, he looked at her affectionately. There was a pretty blush coloring her cheeks, and her eyes were far away. He knew that she was probably imagining a better ending to their embrace, just as he was.

"By the way," he interrupted her musings. "I grabbed a copy of the FBI's bylaws before I left work earlier. Particularly the volume that addresses employee comportment." She looked at him with a raised eyebrow and allowed an eager smile to light her features.

"Sounds like an interesting topic of study," she said coyly. "You'll have to let me know how that one turns out."

"As soon as possible," he promised. Their eyes met, and Booth felt the weight of the decisions they needed to make. He would wait for her to be ready, but when the time came, he didn't want anything standing in their way. Least of all the FBI. Because he was absolutely certain that he wanted Temperance Brennan for far longer than the length of a fling or infatuation.

He wanted her for keeps.

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By Sunday afternoon, Brennan was feeling fairly accomplished. She had catalogued several sets of remains from bone storage, written two chapters of her book, gone grocery shopping, and cleaned her apartment from top to bottom. She should have been tired, but she seemed to have a great deal of nervous energy. She couldn't stop thinking about Booth, and she was torn between enjoying her idle fantasies or being frustrated with herself for behaving like a teenage girl.

Shaking herself out of a particularly mouth-watering daydream yet again, she decided to go for a run. Perhaps the exercise would clear her mind and expel her surplus energy, she thought hopefully. It was a gorgeous day, and the fresh air was enervating. She ran her usual route without conscious thought, soon finding herself on the Mall near a familiar coffee vendor. The battery on her iPod had died a few minutes earlier, and now Brennan was just focusing on her own steady breathing.

"Bones!"

She slowed to a stop, looking for him in confusion. Because there was only one person who called her that. She spotted him quickly, walking toward her with a brilliant smile on his handsome face. Holding his hand was a small boy with wavy, sandy-blonde hair who looked up at her in interest.

She smiled in surprise, and left the running path to meet them halfway. "Hi," she said with an awkward little wave. Brennan had assumed that he hadn't planned on introducing her to his son any time soon, and she was unsure of herself. She needn't have worried, however. If there was anything Booth could accomplish with ease, it was to make her feel comfortable being herself.

"Hey, Bones! I didn't know you ran here. I do too, usually in the mornings."

"Yes, well I haven't been able to do much running lately, but… It's a beautiful day." They both knew why she hadn't had much opportunity to run lately and shared a secretive grin.

Booth's attention was drawn from her sweet smile back to the little boy at his side.

"This is Parker," he said introducing his son. "Parker, this is Dr. Brennan. She's my partner at work, remember?"

"You said her name was Bones," the boy replied, slightly confused. Brennan rolled her eyes indulgently at Booth, then addressed Parker with a smile.

"That's what your dad calls me, but my real name is Dr. Temperance Brennan. I'm a scientist at the Jeffersonian, and I help your dad with his cases."

Parker returned her smile brightly. "Yeah, he said you help him catch the bad guys!"

Brennan chuckled warmly. "That's right." The three of them found a bench and sat down, Parker squeezing between the two adults.

Booth watched her interact with his son, a feeling of warmth expanding in his chest. Parker proceeded to talk her ear off about his school, his friends, his teacher, and a dozen other things, and Brennan gave him her undivided attention. It didn't take long before his tactic switched to asking questions. Booth had told his son that Brennan was the smartest person he'd ever met, and Parker was quick to test the theory. He asked her questions about where she worked and what it was like. He asked if he could ever come to see her at work and was intrigued even more when she offered to give him a tour of the museum exhibits that he might like.

It was clear to Booth that Parker had formed an immediate attachment to his partner, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. Brennan was still feeling slightly unsure of herself as she answered Parker's seemingly endless list of questions about pretty much every topic the child could think of.

When Parker paused to replenish his oxygen, Booth spoke up.

"Hey, Parks, it's nearly dinner time. We need to head home."

"Can Dr. Bones come home for dinner too? Please?" Parker drew out his 'please' to several times longer than its typical length. Booth looked at her hopefully.

"What do you say, Bones? Have dinner with us tonight?" He gave her the smile he knew she couldn't resist, and Brennan laughed out loud when she saw it mirrored on his son's face. She didn't even try to argue. She could read him well enough now to see that his invitation wasn't extended merely as a means of being polite.

"That sounds very nice," she told them.

"Great! Dad's making grilled cheese the way Pops makes it. It's awesome, you'll love it!"

She smiled at his response, and got up to walk with them to Booth's SUV. Parker nudged himself between them again, grabbing one of their hands in each of his. The little boy looked beside himself with excitement that his new friend was coming over.

Brennan wasn't sure who 'Pops' was, but she had to agree that his recipe for grilled cheese was superb. The simple meal reminded her of her childhood, in the days before her parents had disappeared, and she had just been a normal girl with a family who loved her.

Booth noticed when she grew silent and reached across the table to place a hand on hers. His gaze was inquisitive, and she knew that he was worried about her. Her melancholy thoughts must've shown up on her face, she guessed. Brennan was quick to give him a reassuring smile and then directed her attention back to Parker, who was talking about his favorite dinosaurs. The two of them traded facts back and forth as Booth listened fondly.

By the time they had finished dinner and the dishes, Parker was begging his dad to take him to see where 'Dr. Bones' worked so that she could give him a tour. Booth hesitated, but Brennan surmised the direction of his thoughts.

"It's ok, Booth, I didn't mean a tour of the lab. I was thinking more along the lines of the Egyptian and dinosaur exhibits."

"Oh! Yeah, sure buddy. We'll do that next time you're here, okay?" Parker was thrilled and recommenced his endless string of questions for Brennan. She answered each one with patience and accuracy.

Brennan left his apartment before Rebecca came to pick up Parker. For one, she wasn't sure how she felt about this unknown woman who had raised such a wonderful child and yet behaved in such a petty manner as to metaphorically dangle the child in front of his father much as one would present a treat to a dog. She wasn't entirely sure she could be civil to the woman, and Brennan felt that it was probably best she avoid the situation for the time being.

She also felt fairly certain that being alone with Booth in his apartment was more than her shaky self-control could handle. So she called a cab, thanked him for dinner, and accepted a very tight hug from Parker. Her arms wrapped gently around the little boy, and she smiled into his wavy hair. Booth locked eyes with her as she left, and they communicated silently, acknowledging the step they had taken that evening, without even intending to do so.

A couple of hours after she returned to her apartment, her phone beeped to indicate an incoming text message. It was from Booth, thanking her for being so wonderful with his son. She replied that thanks were not necessary, that she enjoyed talking to Parker, and again that she appreciated dinner. A few moments later, he answered back that, necessary or not, he was thankful for her and wished her a goodnight. It was an odd manner of phrasing, she thought. He was thankful for her. That could mean so many things, but she refrained from questioning him further. And as she laid in bed a little later, her mind was still full of Booth.

And she realized that she was thankful for him too.

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The following week passed slowly without a case, and Booth spent the majority of it researching the guidelines for employee conduct in the FBI. So far, he'd found nothing which stated outright or even implied that contracted personnel was bound by the same rules. It seemed instead that said employees were to be governed by the rules of their direct employers. Meaning that it was the Jeffersonian that could cause problems, if they were so inclined. But Booth couldn't imagine why anyone there would raise an issue with them having a romantic relationship during their off-hours.

It went without saying that they could and would keep things professional at work. They were more than capable of that. _Especially Bones_ , he thought with a smile. If there was one word which best described the brilliant Dr. Brennan, it was _professional._ Booth knew that there was half a chance he had missed or misunderstood something in his reading, so he was going to keep digging until he was certain. And in the meantime, he found himself trying to come up with reasonable excuses to see his partner even though they didn't have a case at the moment.

They'd managed to make their post-case paperwork get-together last two nights instead of one, stretching it out further by making dinner together at his apartment rather than eating take-out, having a few beers, and talking late into the night. Both of them understood the motives behind their stall tactics, but neither acknowledged it out loud.

It wasn't until Thursday evening that Brennan came up with a worthy excuse of her own to see him, and the next morning found them sitting at a conference table as he reviewed her request to carry a concealed weapon in the field.

"Name?" Booth asked, looking at the form in front of him.

"You know my name."

"Bones, you are making an official request to the FBI to be allowed to carry a concealed weapon. I have to follow protocol." He could afford to mess with her a little, he thought. Because he knew exactly what _protocol_ would dictate.

"It's ridiculous," she pointed out stubbornly.

"Fine, then we're done here. You wanna grab some coffee?"

"My name is Dr. Temperance Brennan," she answered quickly.

"Reason for wanting a gun?"

"To shoot people."

"Not a good reason."

"It's the truth."

He looked at her with a tolerant smile and said, "You know, I'm writing 'self defense in the performance of my duties pursuing suspected felons as contracted by the FBI.'"

"So I can shoot them," she finished for him. He ignored her.

"Ever been charged with a felony?"

"Charged or convicted?"

"Charged."

"You know I have."

"I have to ask the questions."

"Bureaucratic nonsense," she huffed with a roll of her eyes. This wasn't as fun as she'd hoped.

"Nevertheless… who was the arresting officer?"

She leveled an impatient stare on him. "You. Special Agent Seeley Booth. Do you need me to spell that for you?" Brennan asked with a teasing smile.

"I can sound that out."

"So when do I get the gun?" She watched him stamp the document heavily.

"You can't have a gun."

"Why not?"

"Because you were charged with a felony."

She let out a tiny noise of frustration that made him smile a little bigger. "Write down that you were wrong to charge me," she insisted.

"Oh, there's no space for that." Brennan set her jaw, realizing he was enjoying this way too much.

"Why did we go through all of this if you were never going to give me a gun?"

"You have a constitutional right to apply for a weapon. I would _never_ deny your constitutional right," he insisted with unnatural cheer.

"But I need a gun!"

"Rules are rules."

"They don't even have to give me an FBI gun, I can use the one that's already registered to me," she suggested, bargaining now. The smile slipped from Booth's face as he thought of his recurrent fear that her own gun could be turned on her. He gritted his teeth and was saved from having to figure out how to respond to her when junior agent approached him. The man's expression conveyed important news, and Booth gratefully directed his attention away from Brennan's arguments.

"Agent Booth, you said you wanted to be informed when Peter St. James made bail," the agent said quickly.

"Yeah?" Booth answered.

"His bond hearing was delayed by a couple of days; someone lost the paperwork," the man said, interpreting the amusement in Booth's eyes as confirmation of what he had already suspected. "But the hearing was Wednesday, and he made bail yesterday. I didn't hear about it until this morning. His trial date has been set for a couple months out." Booth looked alarmed, and the agent rushed to explain. "The docket's pretty full. And a condition of his bail was that he have no contact of any kind with Dr. Brennan."

The young agent's eyes flickered over to Brennan, who looked startled and confused.

"Thanks, Haynes," Booth told him, and the man left the conference room quickly. He'd heard a lot about Agent Booth's scientist partner, and the majority of it was enough to intimidate even the most seasoned agents in the office. If the rumors of her temper were accurate, he knew that getting himself out of her vicinity was the prudent thing to do.

Brennan turned to Booth and asks the obvious. "You have an agent keeping tabs on Peter?"

"Of course," he answered succinctly. "And he's out of custody now, so you know what that means," Booth said, rising from his chair.

"No, I don't."

"It means that I'm not leaving you alone." His tone implied that this conclusion was obvious, and that frustrated her even more.

"I can handle Peter," she told him irritably. "You don't need to worry about him." They left the conference room and headed toward his office.

"And just how are you planning to do that?"

"Maybe I'll just shoot him," she answered in a voice heavy with sarcasm. He didn't know whether to argue with her or applaud her use of sarcasm. But he was spared the need to choose as they walked into his office. He had a visitor.

"Am I interrupting?" Brennan peeked around Booth to see the woman who spoke. She had curly, dark red hair, freckles, and was looking at Booth in a somewhat familiar way.

"I told them not to let you in the building," Booth said, irate. "I gave them your picture."

"Which is why I wore the tiny skirt."

"Very cute," Booth replied dryly. The woman held her hand out to shake Brennan's.

"Amy Morton."

"Temperance Brennan."

"You work with Booth?" Amy asked with interest.

"Yes, I'm a forensic anthropologist."

"I'm a defense lawyer. I tend to work against Booth." She said with a smile.

"If it's all the same, I'd prefer you two didn't bond in any way," Booth cut in. Brennan shrugged in response.

"Hey, I want to get back to the lab, so I'll see you later." Booth looked at her quickly, about to tell her to wait for him so that he could escort her. But Brennan was faster. "Also, do you think if _I_ wore a tiny skirt, I could get that gun application approved?"

Booth inhaled a bit of his own saliva and was taken by a fit of coughing. Before he had recovered, she'd given him a flirtatious, "You be sure to let me know," and left the office.

When he was breathing properly again, he turned to find Amy smirking at him conspiratorially. He chose to ignore her for the moment and went to his desk instead. Booth picked up the phone and dialed the extension for surveillance. After ordering a tail on Peter, he finally directed his attention back to his guest.

"What do you want, Amy?"

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 **Does anyone know when Booth started wearing his funny socks and ties? I can't remember or find the answer online, and I don't really have time to go back and watch more episodes at the moment. I know they talked about how he dresses during their first case, but his ties in S1 are pretty normal. PM me if you know! Thanks!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Okay, my lovely readers, I have to say-I am truly humbled by all of the amazing reviews. Thank you SO much!**

 **We're getting closer to the rating change. It will for sure be Chapter 10. I expect to finish Chapter 11 tomorrow (today actually) , and it's turning out to be pretty steamy too. :)**

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Chapter 8

Booth considered the man on the other side of the glass carefully. His opinion of Howard Epps was unchanged; he believed this man was guilty of murder. But Amy had asked him to come here and look the creep in the eye, and he had found it difficult to deny her that. Primarily because when it came to capital punishment, he felt there should be absolutely no doubt in the guilt of the accused.

As he listened to Epps describe the lethal injection process with tearful eyes, Booth recognized a feeling similar to the one he'd had when targeting Farid Masruk. _Doubt_. He had been confident of this man's guilt at the time of his arrest. Booth wasn't sure what had changed, per se. The evidence and suspect remained the same. Perhaps it was only Booth who had changed. Either way, he was feeling a hint of doubt, and it made him exceedingly uncomfortable.

Booth drove toward the lab, hating himself for what he was going to ask of Brennan and her team. But the clock was ticking, and he had to be sure. He found her in her office and was struck for a moment by the way the light made her eyes seem to twinkle as she turned them toward him.

He expected more of an argument from her, but Brennan seemed to take his request in stride. She agreed to examine the evidence against Howard Epps in the case of a murdered teenager as a personal favor to him. A few well chosen words to the squints had them on board too, and Booth fervently hoped this wouldn't all be for nothing.

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Nearly thirty hours later, he gazed down bitterly at the two sets of skeletal remains they'd uncovered in the process of finding the murder weapon. Booth's fury with Epps was to be expected, but his fury with himself was overwhelming. How had he gotten them all into this? He had only wanted to be sure of the truth before a man was executed. Epps had manipulated his sensitive lawyer, and by extension Booth, with apparently effortless skill. They had gotten their certainty, but the upshot of it all was that Epps had possibly bought himself years in which to devise more ways to evade his fate.

For a brief moment, he considered delaying the his phone call to report their discovery, and he voiced the thought aloud. But Brennan was right-these young women deserved justice every bit as much as April Wright. _It's what we do, Booth,_ she had said. And so he made the call, the stay of execution was ordered, and Epps lived to breathe another day.

"I understand why Epps needs to speak to his lawyer, but why are _we_ going?" Brennan asked him quietly from the passenger seat. He sighed with fatigue before answering.

"Because of the way I got us sucked into this whole thing. She told me to go look him in the eye before I decided whether or not to help her re-examine the evidence. And I need to do that again now. So that he knows this isn't the end of it: I'll still be working to make sure he pays for what he's done."

She nodded, understanding that it was his way of coping with good intentions gone wrong. But it still didn't explain why she was coming along too.

"And me?"

He smiled sadly at her and said, "Because you're my partner. And you're the best at what you do, Epps knows that. And he needs to know that you're going to be working against him too."

Brennan said nothing in response but nodded again and returned her gaze to the road in front of them. They met Amy at the prison, and the three of them sat down at a table opposite Howard Epps. The man's expression was elated; the rush of serotonin and adrenaline were making him feel high, Brennan realized.

"Thank you," he gushed. "All I can say is thank you."

"What's that Howie? Practicing to get jury sympathy?" Booth asked venomously.

"I did not kill anyone." He looked at Brennan then and continued, "Thank you. I mean it."

"We found the tire iron. You'll be found guilty of those murders," she informed him confidently.

"Well, I need a good lawyer," he said, turning to Amy. "These murder investigations take a long time. Then there's the appeals. And since I should have been dead half an hour ago, it's all gravy from now on." His smile was sickening, and Booth would have greatly liked to pummel him.

"We gave him everything he wanted," Amy spoke up in disgust.

"Who knows if there will even be a death penalty then?" Epps said to her. "I mean, that's your dream, isn't it? We want the same things from life."

Amy left the room without another word, looking green in the face. Epps turned back to address Brennan.

"And I owe you too," he told her sycophantically. "I read your book. When I read you were working with Booth here, I knew you were just what I needed." Epps reached for Brennan's hand then, and Booth knew instantly what was coming. He did nothing to stop her.

Brennan gripped his wrist quickly and slammed it into the metal table, feeling the bones snap in her hand. As Epps groaned and doubled over, cradling his wrist, Brennan and Booth headed toward the door. She glanced at him a little nervously.

"You going to arrest me for assault?"

"From what I saw? Purely self-defense," he answered, completely untroubled by her actions.

"Maybe I shouldn't carry a gun after all."

"Hell, you can have mine," he joked affectionately. His smile was weary, but his eyes were warm. Booth placed his hand gently to her lower back as they made their way out of the prison and back to his vehicle.

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"I'm not hungry," Brennan told Sid when he told them he'd bring them some food.

"No use arguing with Sid, Bones," Booth replied, bumping fists with the man as he moved toward the kitchen. Even Sid had noticed that she sometimes went back to work before eating anything. He'd asked Booth about it once, and Booth complained that Brennan didn't eat nearly as much as she should, skipping meals fairly often when she was working. She'd been eating more since they'd become partners, and Booth had taken it upon himself to make sure she was taking better care of herself. But he didn't always win those arguments with her, and it was good to have Sid backing him up.

"I'm sorry for wrecking your weekend for nothing," Booth told her, still a little morose.

"No, not for nothing," she insisted.

"Come on, you know what I mean. You know, all that running around; it didn't change anything. Epps was guilty. He was always guilty."

"There was doubt," she reminded him. "We had an obligation to respect that doubt. We all share in the death of every human being."

That statement surprised him, particularly after hearing her tell Amy that she supported the death penalty. Booth shuddered again at the thought of the scene she had described in Rwanda as well as the recurring fear that she might be in a situation like that again.

"Very poetic," Booth commented distractedly.

"No, very literal," she clarified, drawing his gaze. "We all share DNA. When I look at a bone, it's not some artifact that I can separate from myself. It's a part of a person who got here the same way I did. It should never be easy to take someone's life. I don't care who it is."

He studied her beautiful features, feeling the air in his lungs constrict at her words. _It should never be easy to take someone's life._ Hadn't he said almost the very same thing after their second case as partners? She had understood him then, and she reminded him of that kinship now. Rarely had he felt such a connection to another person, and certainly never to a woman.

They stared into one another's eyes, entranced and oblivious to their surroundings. Sid watched them silently for a moment before setting their plates in front of them and then backing away to give them their privacy.

They ate their meals and enjoyed one another's company, sneaking glances and smiles. They talked about nothing and everything, and both of them found it cathartic after such a disappointing case.

"Thanks for being here, Bones. It means a lot; I hope you know that," he told her with a tender smile. She returned it as she rose from her seat, kissed his cheek softly, and began to gather her things. His breath had hitched when her lips touched his face, but he recovered quickly and placed a hand on her arm before she could move to leave.

"Hold up, Bones. I'll take you home," Booth insisted. She knew he simply didn't want to give Peter an opening to approach her, and she rolled her eyes for his benefit. Brennan didn't argue though, and Booth took that as a good sign.

He got up from his seat as well and tossed some cash on the bar for their meals. Booth spotted Sid in his peripheral and glanced at him. His friend wore an expression that conveyed his thoughts with perfect clarity. _When are you gonna get on with it?_ Booth grinned indulgently in response and shrugged before following Brennan out the door.

He didn't insist on staying with her that night, and Brennan determinedly ignored the disappointment she felt about that.

"I'll give you a ride in the morning though," he told her in a tone that did not invite contradiction.

"I _can_ drive myself, you know what right?" Brennan asked with playful sarcasm.

"Yeah, sure. Listen, call me if he shows up, ok? Right away, even if he's just watching you, like before."

She sighed but agreed, "I promise." He bent to peck her cheek softly and turned to head back toward the elevator, but he glanced back at her quickly.

"And make sure your door stays locked," he reminded her. Brennan pursed her lips but again complied. She tried to maintain a feeling of frustration with the whole situation as she prepared for bed and turned off her light. But in the darkness, she had to admit, at least to herself, that having someone who cared about her enough to be that concerned for her safety was… nice. She hadn't felt that particular sensation in nearly fourteen years, and it unnerved her as much as it thrilled her.

Brennan didn't trust it to last, didn't know how. The only people who had ever cared about her that way had disappeared and likely died, or else they had willingly abandoned her. She lay in the dark for hours, trying to make sense of things. She did trust Booth, more than she'd ever trusted anyone. She simply couldn't imagine him intentionally neglecting or hurting someone he cared about. It would go against his nature. Brennan knew that for certain. But her genius mind settled almost immediately upon a circumstance that could take him away from her.

Booth had a dangerous job, and although he was very good at it, law enforcement professionals were killed in the performance of their duties all the time. The mental image of it was enough to send her pulse racing. She resolved in that moment not to give up on getting permission to carry a gun in the field. He needed a strong partner to back him up, to keep him safe. Brennan was plagued by the idea of losing him, but at some point that night, she registered that what bothered her most about it was the possibility of never telling him how she felt, never knowing what it was like to be with him, to be loved by him.

Temperance Brennan didn't believe in love as anything more than hormonal secretions which produced euphoria in response to environmental triggers. Or at least… that's what she had thought before meeting Booth. He had surpassed every expectation she hadn't even realized she possessed and broken through many of her walls. But unlike some men in her past who had fancied themselves in love with her, Booth didn't try to change her at all. It amazed her.

And Brennan found herself carefully considering the startling possibility that she just _might_ be in love with him.

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True to his word, Booth appeared at her door, coffee in hand, not only the next day but the three that followed as well. He dropped by around lunchtime each day and coaxed her out of the lab with pleas to join him as he tried out one new restaurant or another. If he couldn't convince her to leave the lab by dinnertime, Booth showed up with take-out for them both and waited in her office until she was ready to leave.

Booth had determined quickly that Brennan felt guilty keeping him waiting for too long, even if he was taking the opportunity to work through the numerous forms which needed to be filed for each of his cases. More often than not, she agreed to leave the lab hours before she would have otherwise, and on more than one occasion, Booth caught a nod of approval from a security guard as they exited. It seemed that he wasn't the only one who thought she worked too much.

They fell into this new routine seamlessly, neither of them choosing to acknowledge that, without a case at the moment, there was no real reason to be carpooling and having meals together. Booth could have used Peter as an excuse, but the truth was that he just wanted to spend time with her. Brennan didn't seem to disagree.

The first time they broke the routine was due to a new case. Crime scene techs had been called to a possible dump site to examine an old refrigerator which was thought to contain human remains. Booth had instructed them over the phone not to open it but instead to simply bring it to the lab. He texted Brennan on his way to oversee the transport, telling her that he would see her at the lab with what promised to be some pretty nasty remains. He wisely skipped breakfast and would have advised her to do the same if he had thought she would eat breakfast in the first place. She responded quickly with the reminder that she was indeed still capable of driving herself to work, and he smirked at the words on the screen before slipping his phone back into his pocket.

Brennan would have been disappointed not to see him first thing that morning had it not been for the promise of a case which would require even more time spent together. She chided herself a bit at the thought of being grateful for a murder to investigate, but she supposed the unfortunate person would have died regardless of who was now trying to solve the crime.

When she got to the lab, a quick glance at the platform informed her that Booth hadn't been there yet. She placed her belongings in her office quickly and donned her lab coat, heading for the Bone Room. There were a few things to finish up with the remains she had been analyzing the night before.

Angela interrupted her shortly afterward, sharing details about a recent sexual encounter that Brennan wasn't sure she wanted to hear. She was sexually frustrated enough these days without listening to tales of Angela's conquests. Zack entered then, saving her from the detailed description Angela had undoubtedly been working up to and delivering news about the publication of one of her studies.

But before she had even finished thanking Zack for letting her know, Hodgins entered carrying a box.

"Okay, now this is weird. There's some guy in the lounge who asked me to give you this," he said, handing her the box.

She opened it curiously and stared in shock at the item inside. It was a small handheld vacuum, and Brennan recognized it immediately. Her co-workers were speaking, but her mind was immediately far away, recalling the last time she had seen the dust-buster. She had loaned it to him after a rather unwise regression to their former intimate relationship, and shortly afterward she had moved to DC to take her position with the Jeffersonian. Other than a handful of phone calls she hadn't returned, she hadn't seen or heard from Michael Stires since.

Until today, apparently.

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He looked the same, just a little older, she supposed. He was reasonably attractive, from an objective point of view, but Brennan didn't seem to feel the same appreciation of it now. In fact, the only thing she could think of as she looked at him was to remember how he had hurt her in the past-and to compare his mediocre physical appeal with Booth's superior one.

He spoke to her over the railing from the lounge, in his familiar voice, with that familiar confidence she had once found attractive.

"You left it at my place," he said.

"Three years ago," Brennan retorted mildly.

"Hmm," Stires shrugged a bit. "First time I've been in Washington. I thought I should return it in person."

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming?" Brennan asked, watching him lean over the railing slightly.

"What if you didn't take my call? You're a big important author now." His voice was balanced perfectly between an instructor's pride in a former student and the envy of a colleague with considerably less skill. _I most certainly would not have taken your call,_ Brennan thought shrewdly. But supposing she should at least be polite, she addressed him again.

"You can come down here, you know."

"You could come up."

Brennan paused, unsure of the real motivation behind his presence and suddenly felt even more nervous.

"Halfway."

"As always," Stires remarked with flirtatious smile. She met him at the bottom of the stairs and looked at him skeptically.

"I hope you don't have any expectations," she said, a little coolly.

"Do you?" Stires asked, the hope clearly evident in his voice.

"Civility?"

"I can handle that."

"So why are you here?" Brennan asked, trying to affect the civil tone she had requested from _him_.

"George Washington University wants to talk to me about heading their Anthropology Department."

Brennan held back a gloating smile. He hadn't been their first choice.

"They'd be lucky to get you."

"I assumed they tried you first," he said evenly.

"I already had a job." And at that, she felt her smile become genuine for the first time since his arrival. She had loved her job from the very first day, and she enjoyed it even more now that she was working with Booth.

"Maybe we could have dinner tonight? Catch up?" He glanced awkwardly at the squints who seemed to be watching and listening avidly from a short distance away.

"My partner is on his way in with some remains. New case. I'll be working tonight," she answered in short sentences that should have conveyed her lack of interest quite clearly. That is, if he were a typical man. Stires didn't look at all perturbed by her decline, however, but before he could say another word on the subject, Booth's voice rang through the lab.

"Hey, Bones!" Brennan's face fairly lit up at his appearance. Anyone could have seen it, and Stires didn't miss it. But he wasn't a man to give up easily. Booth directed the techs where to place the refrigerator and turned to Brennan expectantly.

"As promised, body in a fridge. Straight out of an illegal ravine dump in Fairfax," Booth said with slightly distracted expression as he eyed Michael Stires uncertainly. Brennan moved forward, donning a pair of gloves, and Booth's eyes narrowed as he watched Stires follow to stand closely behind her. _A little too closely_.

"The body's going to be mostly decomposed," Brennan told him, sniffing around the door experimentally.

"Which is my cue to leave," Angela said in disgust, walking toward her office.

"This is where it gets fun," Stires said brightly. Booth shot a glance at him, a bit disturbed by the man's apparent enthusiasm.

Brennan stepped back from the fridge, and Stires had been hovering so close behind her that she backed right into him, staggering a little. Booth reached out to clasp her elbow and steadied her. She threw an appreciative smile in his direction, but he didn't see it. He and Stires were sizing each other up speculatively. Brennan recognized the reappearance of his 'stare-down' and quirked a hint of smile.

"All right, you can open it," she told Booth. He did so, and stepped away quickly, trying not to be overcome by the smell.

"Uh, he or she?" Booth asked uncomfortably.

"She"

"Late teens, early twenties," Stires interrupted. She repressed the urge to glare at him.

"I'd say she's been in the refrigerator for a year," Brennan said, looking toward Hodgins. "Is there enough insect activity to help us be more precise?"

"There's always enough insect activity," Hodgins replied with his typical enthusiastic response to new bugs to play with.

"Remove and clean the bones, Zack. I'll be in my office if you need me."

"You sure I can't persuade you to grab a bite to eat tonight? Talk about old times?" Stires asked with a hopeful expression.

"No thanks. Good luck on your interview," she said dismissively, not pausing or looking back at him as she walked away toward her office. Stires left the lab in a fair bit of confusion. Her reception was not at all what he had expected, and he didn't have to look far for the reason. He'd been shocked when Brennan had allowed her partner to touch her without permission and failed to even deliver one of her famous quips about not needing anyone's assistance. He would have steadied her himself if he'd thought Brennan would allow it. Who the hell was this guy?

Booth was thinking pretty much the same thing as he watched Stires leave the lab.

"Old friend?" Booth addressed Hodgins, trying not to appear too interested. The last thing he wanted was the squints to catch the scent of the slow changes between him and his partner.

"Old teacher," Hodgins corrected, thinking back to what Angela had told them about Brennan's former anthropology professor. Zack spoke up in a dazed voice.

"If she was his student, and I'm her student, then it follows-"

"Ain't gonna happen, Zack-o, not in this universe," Hodgins interrupted quickly, with a cautious glance at Booth's expression. The confusion had cleared from the man's face instantly and was replaced by chagrin. He watched him leave the lab with a new tension in his shoulders.

Hodgins was no idiot. In fact, his IQ rivalled both Brennan's as well as Zack's. But unlike both of them, Jack Hodgins had considerably more skill when it came to interpersonal communication, and he was certainly not oblivious to the way Booth always seemed to be watching Brennan. His eyes tracked her in fascination, even a bit hungrily at times. Hodgins had also seen the less obvious changes in Brennan's behavior. He had worked with her for several years now, and although the differences would have been small to most people, he had noticed them almost immediately. Even Angela hadn't picked up on a lot of it. Though to be fair, Brennan did seem to be doing her damndest to throw her best friend off the scent.

 _Speak of the devil_ , Hodgins thought, chuckling as he saw Angela approach Brennan's office with the determination of a woman on a mission. He shook his head and turned his attention back to his work, an amused smile stretching wide on his face.

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"Here's a sketch of the victim," Angela said, walking toward Brennan's desk. "Her skull was in tact, so it made it easy to work with." Brennan studied the drawing for a moment then glanced back at the file in her hands, holding it up as she replied.

"I just got her dental records. Name: Maggie Schilling. Nineteen."

"Then I guess you don't need this," Angela replied, accepting the sketch back from Brennan.

"She was a dancer. Bone markers in her metatarsals."

"God, to go from the freedom of dance to being crammed into a refrigerator," Angela lamented with a shake of her head. "I hope she was already dead when they shut the door."

Brennan didn't meet her friend's eyes as the woman took a seat across from her. The last thing she wanted to do was to influence Angela in the direction of quitting her job.

"He's hotter than you said," Angela said smoothly.

"Michael?"

"Any other ex-lovers come knocking on your door today?"

"The 'ex' in 'ex-lover' is not a variable. It's a constant, like the speed of light." Brennan didn't want anyone thinking she and Michael were rekindling anything, though admittedly, Angela's assumptions weren't the ones that concerned her.

"Save your dirty talk for the hunky professor," Angela joked.

"I can assure you, the relationship is purely platonic. What we share is a love of science. And even when things weren't platonic between us, neither of us had the time or inclination for emotional complications. I'm quite sure that hasn't changed." _For him_ , Brennan added silently. Emotional complications were becoming a pretty significant part of her life, whether she thought she had time for them or not.

"Sounds very reasonable." Angela answered with a roll of her eyes.

"Yes. I have to get this data together for Booth," she said a bit dismissively.

"Sure. Have a good dinner tonight."

"I'm not going to dinner, Ange," Brennan pointed out. "He extended an invitation, but I really have no interest in spending time with him, especially when we just got a new case."

"I didn't mean the ex, Honey. I meant your dinner with Booth." Angela's face was smug as she took in Brennan's alarmed expression. "Oh, what? Did you really think I hadn't noticed that my best friend and her partner have been eating every meal together for the past week or more?"

Brennan's mouth hung open slightly as she tried to come up with an explanation that Angela would believe. Nothing came to mind, and it wasn't the first time Brennan wished she was a better liar.

Miraculously, Angela turned to leave without waiting for Brennan to stop sputtering, and she settled for shooting a smile of victory in her direction. She didn't really know anything, Brennan reassured herself. She was only speculating. Still, she couldn't help the feeling that perhaps she and Booth hadn't been as careful as she'd thought.

It wasn't enough to make her want to change this new routine they'd fallen into, however. She was simply enjoying it too much.

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Brennan found Booth in his office later that afternoon, and they discussed the case information they'd gathered thus far.

"Cause of death?" Booth asked hopefully.

"Not yet, but there are stress fractures on both wrists, and we have some people running chemical analyses and toxicity screens on the effluent in the refrigerator."

"Okay. You'll call me later?"

"Sure," she replied with an easy smile.

"Do you, um… Do you have plans tonight then?" Booth asked nervously, remembering that Stires had been asking her for a dinner date that morning.

"No, I had planned to work late," she told him conspiratorially. She was rewarded with a brilliant smile.

"Maybe I can bring over some Thai? Say around seven?"

"That sounds reasonable." Brennan watched his grin widen in response. Booth couldn't help but feel rather satisfied that she had chosen to spend her evening with him rather than her former teacher. It hadn't been difficult to deduce the former nature of their relationship after speaking briefly to Hodgins. Booth had been trying very hard not to think too much about it that day. And failing miserably.

When he sat next to her on her office couch later that evening, fighting over containers of mee krob, he felt he might be well-enough prepared now to hear the story behind Stires' sudden reappearance.

"So what's the deal with this Stires guy? You looked pretty uncomfortable this morning."

She sighed and tilted her head slightly, contemplating the best way to explain. "He was my anthropology professor and my doctoral advisor. He's in town interviewing for a department leadership position at GWU." Booth nodded blandly.

"I'm surprised you didn't want to catch up on old times then," he said cautiously, fishing for a few more details. Brennan shook her head quickly.

"While that might have been pleasant, I'm fairly certain that Michael would have wanted more than dinner and a conversation. He's not a man to concede an objective easily."

"Is that supposed to mean what I think it means?" Booth asked with barely concealed ire. "Because it sounds like you just said he's a guy who doesn't like to take 'no' for an answer."

Brennan looked at him quickly and tried to reassure him. "I didn't mean that he was violent in any way, Booth. Just persistent." She watched him relax infinitesimally.

"But this guy… sleeps with his students? You included, back then?" He knew his expression was disapproving, but he couldn't help it. Brennan shrugged before responding.

"Yes, we had a short and rather tumultuous relationship. I was of consenting age, so there's no need to look so stern. However, what I did not realize until much later was that I was by no means the only one of his students he had propositioned."

"That's completely unethical, Bones."

"If that's true, then I'm equally guilty of behaving unethically," Brennan pointed out calmly.

"No, he was the one in the position of authority. Consenting age or not, he took advantage of you." Booth felt the heat of his conviction rise to his face.

"Well either way, it's of little consequence at this point. I have no intention of revisiting any kind of relationship with him beyond that of a professional colleague," she reassured him. She could see that he was upset on her behalf, or rather on behalf of the twenty-two year old woman she had once been. But she thought she might have detected a hint of jealousy as well, and she wasn't entirely sure she understood it. She wasn't sleeping with Michael anymore. In fact, she had been avoiding him rather diligently for the past three years, and today had been no exception.

So why had Booth adorned his irate alpha-male expression and begun to attack his food rather vigorously? It didn't make sense.

Booth was unaware of her scrutiny. He was pleased and thankful that Brennan hadn't given Stires and his 'proposition' any further consideration, but his anger had dissipated only slightly. What kind of creep targets his young female students? And more than one at a time? His scowl grew more pronounced as he thought again of Peter. Had Brennan ever been with a _decent_ guy? While he hoped that was the case and was very curious to know the answer, Booth really didn't feel like actually hearing any more stories about her past relationships. As illogical as it might be, thinking of her with another man made him feel a little sick. And jealous, he could admit that to himself at least. He was jealous of anyone who had been privileged enough to share her bed. The fact that she had extended the honor to such undeserving men was what made him angry. Not with her, but with whomever was responsible for making her think that she didn't deserve any better.

"Booth?" Brennan said quietly, interrupting his thoughts. He looked at her fully then, modifying his expression.

"Yeah?"

"You believe me when I say that I'm no longer interested in Michael. Right?"

He smiled at her reassurance. "Of course, Bones. It's not like you even owe it to me to tell me that anyway, you know? I just… I hate that someone like him took advantage of someone like you. It's low. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes, I think so. Your overprotective nature doesn't stop at things that are happening in the present but rather extends to past events as well."

Booth pursed his lips and relented in amusement. "You know, repeatedly calling me overprotective doesn't make me any less determined to keep you safe."

"I know," she smiled wickedly. "But it's fun to watch your face when I use that word to describe you." She laughed out loud as he looked at her in false shock. "You don't seem to care much for 'alpha-male' either," she snickered.

"You're really going to pay for that there, Bones," he replied, grinning widely. "I was just starting to really consider getting you a gun too…" His voice took on a note of mock dismay, and it was her turn to look momentarily shocked.

"You _should_ give me a gun. Then maybe you wouldn't feel the _need_ to be so overprotective," she said, emphasizing each syllable of the last word.

"On the contrary. I know you don't really _need_ a gun because you can kick anyone's ass perfectly well without one."

"If you trust my skills that much, then I'm sure you won't mind if I drive myself home tonight. Alone." Her eyes dared him to argue and contradict the confidence he'd just claimed to have in her. Booth pretended to consider it rather dramatically, but he already knew what to say. The man Booth had assigned to keep an eye on Peter's activities had been reporting to him daily. At this point, the guy had not had anything to report, good or bad.

"I suppose those terms are acceptable," he told her with a gracious smile. Her surprise was genuine this time as she cocked an eyebrow at him.

"That was too easy," she answered suspiciously.

"Yeah, I'd suggest you don't give me time to think it over much more," Booth said dryly, gathering up the remnants of their dinner.

"Well, in that case, I think I'm going to go home early after all. I should get home before it gets too dark, so I'll be able to see anyone who might follow me…"

"You do that," he smirked. "Hey, I do have an early meeting tomorrow though, so I'll have to just meet you here when I'm done."

His tone had lost its playful edge, so Brennan relinquished hers as well.

"That's fine. Hopefully we'll have some more information for you by then," she said, switching back to the case. "She did fight, Booth. They kept her tied up like an animal… but she fought. That's how she got those stress fractures, because she was bound and struggling. For days, most likely."

Booth's lighthearted manner had fallen away as she spoke, and he moved to kiss her cheek.

"You should get home. Get some rest, look at everything with fresh eyes tomorrow," he suggested. She nodded in silent agreement and thought, not for the first time, that cheek-kissing was a rather _un_ partner-like habit.

And she didn't mind in the slightest.

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The next morning, Brennan prepared to drive herself into work again. She privately acknowledged that, as much as she liked her independence, she had really come to enjoy the time she and Booth had been spending together. And when faced with his absence for the second consecutive morning, she felt considerably melancholy. She missed him. And she hoped that he missed her as well.

Brennan gathered her things and was nearly at the front door when a knock sounded from directly on the other side of it. She froze in a brief measure of shock, but pulled herself together quickly and looked through the peephole. She was tremendously glad for it at the moment, though she didn't necessarily plan on telling Booth that.

She cursed softly. Michael Stires was at her front door. _How the hell did he even know where I live,_ she wondered in disbelief. For a moment, she considered pretending not to be home, but she quickly scolded herself for her own cowardice. He was just a man, for crying out loud.

She opened the door, still holding her jacket, purse, and keys. He greeted her with an appreciative grin, his eyes tracking down her body and back up again.

"Morning, Tempe!"

"What are you doing here? And how did you know where I lived?"

"I have my ways," he replied mysteriously. "I have some time before my interview, and I thought it might be nice to get a better look at the lab. Take a tour and all that, you know. Plus I figured I could give you a ride to work, maybe we could stop for coffee on the way…"

Brennan gritted her teeth. _Would the man ever learn to take a hint?_

"I don't mind if you want to see the lab, but I need my car today, so I'll just meet you there," she answered brusquely. She attempted to move past him into the hallway, but he took a tiny step forward to block her path. _Too close,_ she thought irritably. She looked up into his face, and he recoiled slightly at the steel in her eyes. "You need to move out of my way. Now." Her voice was full of warning, and Stires was wise enough to heed it.

He moved backward to stand against the same stretch of wall Booth had shoved Peter into. Brennan closed her door and used her key to lock it from the outside. She could feel his eyes on her but chose to ignore him.

"Look, Tempe, I just wanted to spend a little time with you while I was in town. Dinner, lunch, coffee, whatever. I miss talking to you, and we had a lot of good times." Stires intentionally phrased his words into a request for platonic companionship, hoping it would disarm her a bit. But she merely rolled her eyes and proceeded down the stairwell. She had no desire to be alone in the elevator with him. Best to keep moving.

"So I guess that's a no?" Stires asked glumly.

"That's correct. I'll see you at the lab, and any 'catching up' that needs doing can be done while I work."

She was unlocking her car and climbing in before he could come up with a reply, and he sighed as he watched her pull away.

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Brennan felt his presence behind her as she climbed the steps to the platform. This was going to be a long morning if he insisted on being underfoot.

"Good morning, all," Brennan said wearily.

"You're late," Angela said with a devilish grin. She had thought Brennan would be moving things forward with Booth soon, but the look on Stires' face told her that he was more than a little interested in her best friend too. _If nothing else, the competition might be just what Booth needs to get his ass in gear_ , Angela thought happily. But then she looked- _really_ looked-at Brennan's face. And what she saw concerned her as much as it confused her.

"I was delayed by an unexpected visitor," Brennan said irritably.

"Can I talk to you for a second?" Angela asked, pulling Brennan away from the group. A quick glance in their direction told her that Zack and Hodgins had effectively prevented Stires from getting any closer to Brennan for the moment, and the sight made her smile

"What is it, Ange? I need to get back to work."

"I just wanted to ask if you're ok. You look like you're about ready to beat the crap out of somebody."

"That's not a coincidence."

Angela raised her brows and her eyes flickered to Stires again, silently asking Brennan if she was referring to him. Brennan jerked a nod.

"Did something happen?"

"Not really, he just won't take a hint. Or a clearly articulated statement, apparently."

"Ah. Gotcha. Well, what's he doing here anyway? I thought he had some fantastic job interview."

"He wants to look at our equipment."

"That's for sure," Angela replied under her breath, but Brennan heard her nonetheless.

"I don't know what you mean."

Angela opened her mouth to explain, but thought better of it. "Look, Sweetie, let's just get to work and try to ignore him, ok? I'll be your wingman." She gave Brennan a reassuring smile.

"My wingman?"

"Yes, it means that I've got your back."

"I know that one," Brennan told her, understanding now.

The two of them moved back toward the exam table, and Brennan began to go over the findings with Zack. Not ten seconds later, Michael was arguing with her conclusions. Brennan wanted to throw something at him. She hadn't wanted him here in the first place, and now he was going to stand on her forensic platform, in _her_ lab and tell her she was wrong?

The squints watched them spar like spectators at a tennis match, and not even Zack missed the tension level building.

Hodgins jumped into the conversation, hoping to relieve a bit of the tension and support Brennan at the same time. It worked somewhat, but the real relief came when Stires announced that he needed to leave for an appointment.

"I'll call you later, Tempe," he told her as he stepped down from the platform. She wanted to turn and tell him not to, but he was moving quickly toward the exit by that point.

No one was disappointed to see him go.

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Booth picked her up not long after Stires had left, and as she sat next to him in the SUV, she felt herself truly relax for the first time that day. She let out a long sigh and allowed her eyes to close briefly.

"You ok, there Bones?"

"Yes," she answered evenly. "Just had a long morning."

Booth decided not to mention the fact that it was hardly past ten and instead directed her attention on their destination. They were on their way to the Schillings' home to notify the victim's parents of her death, and then they would make a stop at the office of her endocrinologist to question him about the drugs found in her system.

As always, notifying the victim's family was difficult. It was always part condolence, part interrogation, but in this case at least, Booth left their home feeling confident that they weren't involved in their daughter's death. A brief interview with the victim's endocrinologist led them to the home of his former office manager, whom the victim had allegedly bribed for opiates.

Mary and Scott Costello seemed completely unnerved by the presence of the FBI in their home. Brennan questioned them briefly while Booth meandered toward the kitchen, eyeing the brand new refrigerator which stood out in an otherwise shabby kitchen. He moved it backward enough to see markings on the floor from where the previous one had been dragged. Booth questioned Mary about it, and it was the first time the woman appeared nervous.

Booth had the FBI forensic team called to the property in record time. They took pictures, carried boxes out of the house, and collected trace evidence from the couple's 'fun room' in the basement.

"They're sadomasochistic fetishists," Brennan said, intrigued.

"Yeah. Turned the basement into a 'fun room.'"

"Seeking sexual gratification through the manipulation of power," she said as she briefly examined a spiked collar with a hint of confusion. "Probably the oldest of fetishes. Master-slave. It's all about dominance."

"Well, this only comes up when the bloom comes off the rose, if you know what I mean," Booth told her confidently.

"I don't know what you mean."

"You know, when the regular stuff… when it gets old, and you need to spice it up, it's over. When sex is good, you don't need any help."

"Oh…" she said in comprehension. "That's for sure."

Something about the look on her face made him nervous. Was she talking about herself? Or people in general.

"I'm sorry?" Booth asked for clarification.

"I was agreeing."

"Oh…"

"I was just saying that I myself feel no inclination toward either pain or dominance when it comes to sex," she explained, meeting his eyes playfully.

He returned her gaze in the same manner. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." She watched him as he stepped a bit closer to her and bent down to speak in low tones directly into her ear.

"Because you can be very bossy," he told her, sending a tremor through her body that did not go unnoticed by Booth. For a moment, he nearly forgot their surroundings almost pressed his lips to her neck. Almost.

They snapped out of it quickly, however, when a tech approached them carrying a pair of pink furry handcuffs. Even in her befuddled state, she recognized that they could very well have been responsible for the stress fractures to the victim's wrists.

The drive back to the lab was torturous. In reality, his words hadn't even been all that provocative, but it seemed that any time they were that much in each other's personal space, pulling away from that magnetism was nearly painful. Both of them battled silently with their physical responses to one another, not even daring to risk a glance in each other's direction. Booth wasn't sure how much longer this tension bubble between them could last before it burst altogether. He still had every intention of giving her time to process, but his attraction to her was literally painful at times like this. The silence began to bother him then, and he said the only thing he could come up with considering the majority of his blood was flowing in a direction opposite his brain.

"I'm sorry about that back there, Bones."

"For what exactly?" Brennan asked him curiously, her smile teasing.

"You know what," he answered, finally risking a glance at her. Her skin was flushed beautifully and her eyes sparkled at him.

"I suppose I do," she said in a low, sultry voice. "But please don't apologize."

"I'm not sorry for what I said, Bones. Just where I said it. It wasn't exactly professional of me." His tone was gentle and soft.

"And what about _how_ you said it?" Brennan asked him hopefully.

"Nope. Not sorry for that either." They shared a sexy smile between themselves and turned their attention to the fact that they were entering the parking structure at the Hoover.

After taking identical and simultaneous calming breaths, they exited the car and went inside. As they walked, Brennan couldn't help but feel as though a sort of challenge had been extended. He knew he had turned her on. She _knew_ he knew it. She also knew that he certainly been aroused in her presence more than once. For Christ's sake, she had _felt_ it. The memory brought a smile to her face that he noticed but couldn't decipher. He had managed to arouse her in the workplace. In the middle of a case, at a crime scene, for that matter.

He had been right about one thing: it was anything but professional. And somehow that excited her even more.

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 **Anyone else think Stires needs a Brennan-style ass kicking? Cause I sure do... Thanks for reviewing!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Welcome back and thank you SO MUCH for your wonderful reviews. I'm beyond flattered at the amazing response to this story.**

 **I had fun writing this chapter; especially getting the chance to fix the Stires situation. I explained some of my decisions for this chapter on my profile page, if you're interested.**

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Chapter 9

The interrogation of Mary Costello did not go well. She admitted that the victim was in her home, even cuffed, but that it was a completely consensual participation in their sex games. The woman's lawyer pointed out that unless they had more evidence than the handcuffs, they had no case. They both knew she was right and headed back to the lab with renewed focus and determination.

Booth stopped to pick up some lunch on their way back, against Brennan's protests that she really needed to work rather than eat. He scoffed at her playfully.

"You really should know by now that I'm not going to let you just skip meals and work yourself into the ground. Not without a fight, Bones." The softness of his tone took the provocation out of his words, but he was no less determined.

"This case is important, Booth. This woman was bound and confined for weeks. We need to find the evidence quickly." He looked at her then. She hadn't said it, hadn't even alluded to it. But he couldn't help but think that their own individual experiences being held captive were making minute connections in her mind. Booth tilted his head in delayed understanding.

"And we will find that evidence. It's what we do, remember?" Booth asked, reminding her that she had recently reassured him in much the same way. "It's what we do, and we are damn good at it, Bones. But if you're not at your best, you might miss something. So that means eating and sleeping regularly."

It wasn't the first time he'd used that particular argument, but it was no less effective this time. She sighed for dramatic effect as they pulled into the Jeffersonian's parking structure.

"Fine."

Booth remained silent, but didn't bother to keep the smile of victory from his face. He wore it all the way into the lab.

Angela certainly noticed his mood as they passed her office in favor of Brennan's, laden with bags of to-go containers. She wondered if Booth realized just how significant it was that Brennan allowed him to boss her around about food. Angela had given up harassing her friend about her eating habits long ago. She'd never gotten anywhere with it and didn't expect that to change. But now here was Booth, refusing to take no for an answer like the typical alpha-male Brennan was always calling him, but still seeming to know exactly what to say to get through to her. He understood her, in ways that even her best friend didn't. She could have felt jealous, she supposed, but instead she was simply happy for her friend. Because Brennan was smiling a lot more these days too, and Angela knew Booth was the reason for that. Now if only they'd get on with things in the sack, she thought wryly.

Unaware that anyone had noticed anything out of the ordinary, Booth followed Brennan into her office and began to set up their food cartons on her coffee table. She ate quickly and didn't complain again. She did, however, swipe the last egg roll. They traded smiles and took turns watching each other, but both of them enjoyed the comfortable silence.

Booth stood when she did and helped her into her lab coat. But before she moved away from him, he placed his hands gently on her shoulders and lowered his head to her ear for the second time that day.

"Thank you," he said simply. Brennan glanced back at him over her shoulder curiously. His proximity wasn't electrifying them both like before; instead the contact was gentle, intimate...loving.

"Thank you, too," she answered quietly. She moved to walk out of her office then, and he watched her progress to the platform. Booth resettled himself on the couch and ate a little more. There really was no point in returning to his office only to have to come back when she had news, so he would simply wait her out. But he would do it in her office, he thought with a grin. No need to make her crazy by hovering.

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An hour later, he was on the platform with the squints at her invitation, however. She had found evidence that the victim's legs had been bound.

As she indicated the particular markers on the bone which supported her conclusion, a familiar voice interrupted from behind them. Familiar and unwelcome.

"You sure this time?" Stires asked in a tone that was probably meant to be playful but instead sounded taunting. He stood at the bottom of the platform stairs, apparently having tried to simply march up them, but the security guard who stood near the ID scanner had stopped him with a hand placed flat on Stires' chest. Booth would be sure to send the man a gift basket of some sort.

"What are you doing here?" Brennan asked. Her tone was not cordial, Booth was pleased to note.

"Can I come up?" He indicated the security guard a bit indignantly, and Brennan nodded to the guard in the affirmative. "Thanks," he told her, climbing the five steps quickly and inserting himself right next to her in front of the flat screen panel. She bristled, and Booth fought the urge to tell the scumbag to back the hell off.

Zack was the first to continue their previous conversation, completely oblivious to the tension this time.

"Dr. Brennan found marks on the medial malleoli, both left and right."

"Her legs were bound," Brennan summarized. Zack spoke again, indicating matching marks on each of the bones on the screen.

"Mirror erosion patterns from the bones rubbing together over time."

Booth spoke up then, seeing the direction they were headed. "If this were the result of sex games, then the legs, they wouldn't be bound together." Stires looked back at him with a dismissive expression.

"I'm not convinced. Brittle bones from her thyroid condition... The damage could have happened in a very short time," Stires told Brennan, inching almost imperceptibly closer. Booth's muscles contracted involuntarily both at the man's movement as well as his words. Since when does this joker need to be convinced of anything in her lab?

Brennan moved away from him to the table, and pointed at the actual bones. He followed her to stand behind her again, looking over her shoulder. Booth glowered at his proximity.

"We also found evidence of inflammation on her right humerus and ilium," Brennan argued.

"The bone abnormalities indicated pathosis from lying in one position for a long time," Zack said.

"The only reasonable explanation is long-term bone damage." Brennan cringed as Stires shifted close enough to actually be touching her back with his chest.

"Decreased bone density could've caused the inflammation. This isn't definitive," Stires argued back. "I hear there's a nice little French place near here I'd like to try," he told her quietly, shifting his weight again and pressing his hips-and something else-slightly against her ass.

The shock of the contact registered in her face, and Booth needed no help deciphering it. Both of them moved simultaneously and instinctively. Booth was a few feet away, so Brennan's elbow made first contact with Stires' ribs, followed the back of her fist into his nose. She turned to face him and pushed forcibly away from her. Unfortunately for Stires, she just happened to have pushed him in Booth's direction, and the agent caught him deftly. Booth forced the man to stand upright with a fistful of hair and a yank upward. Brennan drew back a fist and aimed it as his face again, but she stopped at the last moment, seeing his pained look of surrender.

Brennan gritted her teeth and dropped her hand, but she stepped forward and put her face as close to Stires' as she could stand. She waited a brief moment to be sure she had his attention.

"You're going to get out of my lab," she told him in a wintery tone that complemented the glaciers in her eyes. "You're going to stop calling me, stop asking me out, stop coming by my place, stop thinking about me in any way." Booth's hands gripped Stires still harder as he heard her words. But she continued, "Is that clear enough for you? Because if not, I won't be leaving your face looking so pretty next time."

Booth grinned in spite of himself. That's my girl.

Stires nodded as much as Booth's grip would allow and wisely remained silent. Booth walked him forcibly to the edge of the platform and shoved him a bit down the steps. The guard caught him easily and walked him to the glass doors. Booth really was going to have to send that guy something.

Behind him, Brennan was breathing a bit heavily from the excitement and looking carefully at the remains to check that nothing was disturbed. Satisfied that they were unharmed, she met Booth's eyes and smiled wickedly at him.

"That was fun," she said impishly. Booth barked a laugh, and shook his head in amazement.

"Can I talk to you in your office for a minute?"

She bit her bottom lip slightly, but the smile still remained on her face. She nodded, knowing exactly what was on his mind. Brennan walked just slightly behind him into her office and closed the door behind them.

"All right then, let's hear it," she said expectantly.

"You think you already know what I'm going to say?"

"Of course. You want to know what I meant by the things I said to Stires and why I didn't tell you that he showed up at my apartment." Her tone was untroubled, and a hint of a smile still lit her blue eyes.

"And when," he added, able to remain mostly calm despite his fervent wish that she'd hit the guy a second time after all. Maybe a few more times.

"He came by this morning, said he wanted to get a better look at the lab and offered to give me a ride to work. I declined the ride but not the tour, mostly because he put me on the spot, and I couldn't come up with an appropriate excuse at the time." She looked at him intently before continuing, "That was the first and only time he's been to my place. In fact, I'm not sure how he even got my address, though I imagine someone at the University could have given it to him. And I didn't tell you because I never felt threatened by him, just irritated. And focusing on the case made me feel better." And focusing on you, she added silently.

"Okay."

"Okay? That's it?" Brennan asked him with lighthearted smile.

"Well, I already knew he'd been trying to ask you to dinner," Booth shrugged. "But I do want to know about the phone calls you mentioned."

"Oh. I was referring to his infrequent phone calls since the last time I saw him. Before yesterday, I mean. I didn't take his calls, and I had thought he'd finally taken the hint and decided to back off. He was certainly the last person I expected to show up here yesterday."

"I see," Booth answered, the concern in his expression fading almost entirely now to be replaced by a good-natured smile. "Well I think that after that little show out there, he'd be a real idiot to cross you again."

"Yes, I concur. And though I didn't really need your help, I find that I greatly enjoyed employing teamwork in that instance." They chuckled softly together, and she gestured toward the door with a tilt of her head. "I think Angela should be ready with the simulation by now."

"All right, let's go then," Booth agreed.

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The simulation proved Brennan's theory perfectly, not that Booth had really expected any less. Afterward, Brennan remained in Angela's office for a moment, and Booth stepped out to take a phone call.

"So I heard you took care of Stires pretty well this afternoon. I can't believe I missed it."

"How did you hear about it then?"

"Oh, Zack practically hit light speed between the platform and Hodgins' office to tell him everything. I just happened to be in there too."

"You know it's not really possible for anything other than light to travel at 'light speed.'"

"Yeah, Sweetie, I know," Angela answered quickly. "So Zack said that Booth helped you beat up Stires?"

"Not really," Brennan answered. "It was more like he… held him still so that I could make my point."

Angela laughed cheerfully. "Well let's hope that's the last we see of him then."

Booth re-entered the room at that moment, having finished his phone call, and both women glanced at him. He had heard the end of their conversation.

"We're not going to be that lucky, I'm afraid."

"What do you mean?" Brennan asked him in confusion.

"Well, you're going to have to allow him to look at the evidence at least one more time. I just got off the phone with the prosecutor for the Schilling trial. Stires is the expert witness for the defense. It's his job to tear apart the case you've built," he told her ruefully.

Brennan's shock registered in her expression, and it took her a moment to respond.

"So basically, he was here to spy?" The betrayal of it still surprised her, though she didn't know why. She'd known Michael Stires was...grimy? Greasy? Slimy, that's it. She had learned that unfortunate fact years ago.

"Well, maybe not from the beginning, but today at least, yeah. It sure looks like it. I'm sorry, Bones." She looked at him then, startled.

"Why are you sorry? You didn't do anything…"

"I'm sorry that someone who was once a friend used you like that," he explained compassionately.

"Well, I suppose there's nothing to be done, at any rate. My field is a small one, so it stands to reason that this sort of thing will happen more often now that I work with the FBI." She shrugged it off and changed the subject. "Dinner at Sid's later?"

He smiled broadly. It wasn't often that she asked him to share a meal.

"Of course. Six?"

"That's fine. See you." She watched him walk out of Angela's office and wave in the direction of the platform to someone she couldn't see.

"Wow, what's gotten into you?" Angela asked with barely concealed glee.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you just asked Booth out for dinner."

"We eat dinner all the time," Brennan said, confused. "You already know that; you told me so last night."

"Yeah, but I'm willing to bet that it's usually him initiating the plans, right?"

Brennan thought for a moment, realizing she was correct. But she shrugged, not understanding what difference it made.

"I guess so. Why does it matter?"

"Oh, it matters, Sweetie. But don't worry about it." Angela changed tact quickly, not wanting to make her friend nervous about Booth. "I'm going to do some more work on these renderings before I leave tonight, make sure they're clear for the trial."

Taking that as her cue to leave, Brennan nodded and thanked her before returning to her office.

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Brennan and Booth spent dinner bickering affectionately over the kind of food he preferred and the rather embarrassing reasons she thought he should be eating organic. At that point, he pressed his fingers against her lips to stop her. Listening to her lament his clogged arteries, he could handle. But when she started implying that his food was making his dick smaller, he had to draw the line.

"Bones!" He glanced around quickly to see if she'd been overheard. "You can't just talk about stuff like that in a restaurant!" He removed his fingers then, seeing the spark that had ignited behind her eyes.

She cocked her head to the side with a grin, wetting her lips with a slow sweep of her tongue. "I thought I made it clear that I prefer you use a different method when you feel the need to silence me."

His eyes widened and his throat suddenly felt very tight-as did his pants. Booth recovered after a moment though, and he replied in a low voice.

"Sorry. I'll remember that next time."

"See that you do," she told him, her smile widening.

They turned back to their meals and had been silent for a few minutes when Booth's phone chirped from his pocket.

"Booth," he answered.

Brennan listened to his side of the conversation curiously, wondering if there was a development in the case.

"Hey, Lewis. Whatcha got?" Booth listened intently and then smiled.

"Good to hear. Thanks for keeping an eye on him, man. I appreciate it." He said goodbye and pressed the end button before returning the phone to his pocket.

"What was that about?" Brennan asked, intrigued by his smile.

"A friend of mine down in surveillance. Seems someone we know just got picked up for a DUI and resisting arrest and managed to get his bail revoked." She had rarely seen him look so smug.

"Peter?"

He nodded in assent. "Yup, he'll be held until the trial, which is still like six weeks away, even without any continuances."

"Well that's good… Wait, you said surveillance. Why was anyone surveilling him?"

"Because I asked them to."

"Boooooooth," she whined his name. "You don't think that's just a little bit much?"

"Not at all," he answered seriously. "Your safety isn't something I take lightly."

She gave him a chastising look and shook her head. "I know that, but I still think you went overboard with this one."

He had turned back to the remainder of his food and pushed it around the plate a little.

"No, Bones. Honestly, I don't know how else I could have slept the last few nights otherwise."

That brought her up short. Brennan wondered if she would ever get used to someone else caring so much. The thought humbled her, and she reached toward him to place a hand on top of his. He looked back at her, surprised by the touch.

"Thank you." The two words were simple and softly spoken. And they warmed him from the inside out.

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Booth, Brennan, and their team waited in the gallery for the court proceedings to begin. Brennan had taken the advice of the irritating jury consultant at least as far as her wardrobe, Booth noted, but he wondered nervously if she would be able to 'dumb down' her testimony enough for the jury to follow it.

Stires had returned to the lab for professional reasons, correcting Brennan's findings, giving Booth dirty looks, and pretty much making them both wish she'd slugged him again when she had the chance. He sat on the opposite side of the courtroom now with just a hint of a shiner, occasionally glancing at Brennan with a mild expression. It made Booth even more uncomfortable, and he impulsively dropped his arm onto the back of the bench behind her.

She leaned into him slightly, appreciating the gesture. As usual, his presence comforted her, and she felt slightly less anxious about her testimony. At first glance, she'd been surprised that Stires wasn't more bruised. She'd known exactly how much force to put behind her hand. But upon closer inspection, she realized that he might have actually covered his black eyes with makeup. Brennan had worried a little that the defense lawyer might bring up the altercation as a means of discrediting her, but she supposed that Stires had decided there had been too many witnesses to support Brennan's justification of her actions.

She listened to Booth, Hodgins, and Angela give their testimonies before her turn came, and from the stand, she could see Booth trying to communicate something with his eyes. If she'd been less tense, she probably would've known what it was. However, all she could do at this point was focus on answering the questions she was asked.

Booth watched her on the stand in concern. Her responses were perfectly typical for Brennan. Sure, he still had a hard time comprehending her at times, but shortly after becoming partners, he'd realized that he needed to be able to follow her, especially in an emergency. So he'd spent a fair number of hours googling things she'd said, reading skeletal anatomy diagrams, learning about different types of fractures… But no one on the jury had done any of those things, and it was clear that they weren't following her.

The court took a recess after Brennan's first testimony, and the jury consultant approached Booth in the hallway looking grim.

"She can't connect. Those killers are gonna walk," she hissed. Before Booth could answer, Brennan was standing next to him, and the consultant was now addressing her.

"You didn't listen to a thing I said! Would it have killed you to speak English up there?"

Brennan looked offended. "I wore blue, I looked at the jury," she insisted. Booth spoke up as well.

"You know, for a people person, you're a little rude." The consultant rolled her eyes at both of them and mouthed off again that the Costellos were going to get away with murder. She and the prosecutor walked away from them, and Brennan turned to Booth, frustrated.

"Can you believe that?" Brennan asked. He didn't respond for a moment and looked uncomfortable. "What? You agree with her?"

Anyone could hear the hurt in her voice, and Booth grimaced.

"Well, not entirely."

"'Not entirely.' So that means partly." She shook her head in annoyance. "Well, I was perfectly clear. Didn't you think I was clear?"

"Sometimes. And um… sometimes you were… a little hard to follow."

"What are you talking about? When?"

"When you were talking," he said rapidly. "Listen Bones, I know you care about this case, and I think you should let them see that."

"So, I should perform?" Her tone was incredulous.

"Just a little bit, yeah. But it's more like… letting the jury see who you really are. Not just the scientist part, but the human part."

She considered his words for a moment, feeling unsure of her footing.

"I don't know what you mean, I am a scientist."

"Yes, but you're so much more than that, Bones." She looked at him, still confused. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stires re-entering the courtroom. Court would reconvene soon, and Brennan resolutely walked back into the room. Booth followed quietly and resumed his place on the seat next to her.

Stires' testimony was next, and just as the consultant had predicted, the jury responded to him very well. They were engaged, smiling, even entertained by the falsely self-deprecating comments Stires made. His testimony ignored the facts, he used her demeanor on the stand to undermine her testimony, and he implied that her scientific jargon was simply a means of lying about the evidence. Stires idly stated that he didn't know why Brennan had even become a forensic anthropologist to begin with.

The prosecutor made his objections, and Stires was off the stand fairly quickly. But the damage had been done, and the court took another recess. Brennan was livid. She demanded to be put back on the stand so that she could refute every word out of Stires' mouth, but the prosecutor wasn't convinced that was the best option. He walked away from the partners without committing to re-calling her as a witness.

"I've never been in this position before, Booth. I need to get back up there." Booth could easily read her anxiety and sought to calm her.

"All right, I can talk to him, but look… I have an idea, but you're not gonna like it."

"Just get me back on the stand. I don't care what it takes. He doesn't get to go up there and just trash my career and reputation like that. Not to mention that he knows perfectly well those people are guilty, and he flinched."

"I'm sorry, what?" Booth had lost her at the last statement.

"He flinched, it means…" Brennan sighed, not used to being the one to explain a metaphor. "It was something he used to say to his students. That even in a dangerous situation, like a mass grave guarded by the same soldiers who had killed the people filling it… that 'we tell the truth; we do not flinch.' And he flinched." Brennan was beginning to calm down in minute degrees, but the outrage of the situation still shocked her.

"Okay, I get it. I'll talk to the prosecutor, all right?" Brennan nodded in thanks and walked away.

Booth took a deep breath, watching the prosecutor in a discussion about fifteen feet away. He knew what needed to be done, but he hated that it fell upon his shoulders.

Would she ever forgive him?

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Her second testimony started with the science. The prosecutor interrupted her more frequently to ask for a layman's translation, but a quick glance at the jury told the man that it wasn't working.

He interrupted her again, "Dr. Brennan, why did you become a forensic anthropologist?" Brennan's eyes narrowed in confusion.

"I beg your pardon?"

The defense attorney objected to the relevance of this line of questioning, but the judge allowed it. The prosecutor continued.

"Dr. Brennan, your parents disappeared when you were fifteen, and no one's ever found out what happened to them. Isn't that correct?"

Brennan's eyes flew to Booth's in surprise. Booth looked right back at her, communicating his apology and asking for her trust without speaking a single word. But Brennan understood him, this time.

"That's correct."

"It must be very painful. Is it fair to say that you've been trying to solve the mystery of their loss your whole life?"

Brennan replied tersely, "Do I want answers? Yes. As to how that has affected my behavior, which, I assume is what you're trolling for… I don't put much stock in psychology."

"Is that why you wrap yourself up in techno-speak? So you don't have to feel how these victims remind you of your own parents?" Brennan's expression was incredulous.

"How I feel doesn't matter. My job doesn't depend on it."

"But it's informed by it," he countered. "Or are you as cold and unfeeling as you seem?"

Booth gritted his teeth at the low blow, and even from the stand Brennan could see his jaw clench. She gazed around the courtroom at her friends, then the jury, before responding.

"I see a face on every skull. I can look at their bones and tell you how they walked, where they hurt." Her eyes filled slowly with unshed tears as she continued. "Maggie Schilling is real to me. The pain she suffered was real. Her hip was being eaten away by infection from lying on her side. Sure, like Dr. Stires said, the disease could have contributed to that if you take it out of context, but you can't break Maggie Schilling into tiny pieces.

"She was a whole person who fought to free herself. Her wrists were broken from struggling against the handcuffs. The bones in her ankles were ground together because her feet were tied. And her side, her hip, and her shoulder were being eaten away by infection.

"And the more she struggled, the more pain she was in," Brennan said, tears threatening to spill. "So they gave her those drugs to keep her quiet. They gave her so much that it killed her. These facts can't be ignored or dismissed because you think I'm boring or obnoxious, because I don't matter. What I feel doesn't matter. Only she matters. Only Maggie."

Booth met her eyes again and she left the stand, approval and apology shining through them in equal measure. Rather than walk back to her seat however, she left the courtroom. He let her go, hoping that giving her a little space would help. The thought that he had perhaps ruined what was between them terrified him. He could easily empathize with her, imagining how he would feel if his childhood came up in court. And if Booth had to explain that to her, he would.

He would do whatever it took.

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Brennan sat in her office, alone with her thoughts. He had warned her, she thought wryly. He had told her that she wouldn't like what he had to do to make sure she got a chance to redeem her reputation. That was an understatement.

But as much as she might want to be angry at Booth, she couldn't seem to summon it. Instead, she directed her anger at herself and at Stires. How could she have not seen it coming? How could she not have known what it would turn into when she'd found out that he was the opposing expert witness? Brennan wanted to kick herself for her lack of foresight. She'd been so concerned and confused over what that damned jury consultant kept telling her, that she'd completely missed what now seemed like the obvious conclusion to this turn of events.

Stires coming to the lab, to her apartment, wanting to spend time with her, insisting that he missed her… None of it was ever about her. It had been strategy. And somehow Brennan had forgotten how selfish Stires was. The man never did anything unless there was some benefit promised for him. She sighed, disgusted with the whole thing, and looked up just as Angela entered.

"Guilty on all counts," she announced gently.

"Yeah."

"Are you okay?"

"I will be." She nodded her thanks at Angela, show responded in kind.

"Let me know if you need anything?"

"Sure," Brennan replied. But she wasn't looking at Angela. Booth was standing in her doorway looking wretched. Angela followed her gaze and gave the man a tiny smile of encouragement as she left the room.

Brennan watched him walk toward the desk, still not angry with him, but not feeling particularly happy about things either.

"Hey, Bones," he said carefully.

"What is it, Booth? I'm not feeling very forgiving." Booth cringed and mentally kicked himself yet again. He pushed on, hoping he could at least get her agree to help at the crime scene he'd just been notified of.

"Yeah, I know but… We have a case…" He said the last word as though he was dangling a treat over her head. She regarded him silently for a moment, then stood to grab her kit. He smiled in relief, praying that she would let him apologize for real.

Brennan supposed she could have refused. Instructed that the body be brought straight to the lab, started her examinations the following day. But the appeal of something new to focus on, as well as more time with Booth, was something she couldn't refuse. They rode together to the crime scene, which was mere minutes away. A body had been discovered on the restoration scaffolding around the Washington Memorial.

It wasn't the first time Brennan had examined remains at such a height, but she realized it may have been Booth's first experience with anything like it. She noted his anxious manner and wondered if he acrophobic.

"Are you afraid of heights?" Brennan asked him warily. They were being loaded into a suspension elevator so that they could get to remains, which were about halfway up the length of the monument.

"Huh?" Her question had startled him out of his own thoughts, but he quickly realized why she was asking. "Uh, no… I've jumped out of planes in the Army, Bones. Heights don't bother me."

"Me too," she said vaguely. "I'm glad, because this would have been pretty uncomfortable for you otherwise." He wondered momentarily what her 'me too' had been about but let it go, simply pleased that she was speaking to him.

"Listen, I'm sorry, Bones. I didn't see any other way…" She looked at him as he trailed off, deciding to let him off the hook.

"I understand. I know why you did it, and I know that you're sorry. It's not you I'm angry with anyway."

"No?" Booth asked hopefully.

"No. I'm angry with Stires. And myself maybe even more."

"Whoa… Stires, I get, but why are you angry at yourself? None of it was your fault, Bones."

"I forgot momentarily what kind of person he is," she admitted as they reached the body, and she began her preliminary exam. "I forgot that he's a selfish bastard who doesn't do anything unless there's something to be gained for himself. In this case, I foolishly assumed that he was only after sex, but the reality was that none of it really had anything to do with me. He just thought he could use me to get what he needed. I suppose it wouldn't have been the first time," she finished a little bitterly.

Booth's heart ached for her. "You really should have punched him again the other day, you know."

She grinned up at him from her crouched position. "Oh trust me, if he ever comes around again, I will definitely be rectifying that particular oversight."

Brennan finished her exam and supervised the FBI forensic unit as they loaded the remains for transport to the Jeffersonian. Since there was no one left at the lab at this point, Booth drove her there to sign for the remains and then took her home.

"Thanks, Bones," he said softly. She looked at him from the passenger seat, and his expression made her wonder if he realized he'd spoken at all.

"For what?"

"For not being angry with me. I was terrified that you'd never want to see me again, much less work with me anymore." Brennan looked alarmed at the idea.

"I understand why you did it. It's really okay. It's unfortunate that it came to that, but had the situation been reversed, I probably would have done exactly the same thing."

He smiled at her gratefully, the pressure in his chest continuing to ease as she spoke. But whether she held him responsible or not, he still did. And he would find some way to make it up to her. To ease her vulnerability by sharing some of his, perhaps.

Booth dropped her off with yet another soft kiss to her cheek, and it was all he could do not to gather into his arms and hold her again. As he laid in bed that evening, chasing sleep, he thought back to the way her eyes had welled with tears as she spoke to the jury about Maggie Schilling. And he wondered, for what must have been the hundredth time, how anyone could ever believe she was cold.

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Not twenty-four hours after the remains had been removed from the Washington monument, the culprit turned himself in to DC Metro, unable to handle the guilt. The evidence matched his confession, so there was really very little for Booth to do.

Booth had Parker again the following weekend, and rather than stalk the park and hope his partner ran by on Sunday afternoon, he came right out and invited her to have lunch with them. Brennan was reluctant at first, not wanting to impose on his limited time with his son. But she had enjoyed Parker's company last time, and he didn't have to pester her too much to get her to accept the invitation.

Christmas was just a few days away, and he had planned to take Parker shopping for gifts that afternoon. Booth hoped they could convince Brennan to join them for that as well. Brennan agreed to let them pick her up from her apartment with the reasoning that there was snow coming, and limiting themselves to one vehicle would be wiser in inclement weather.

Parker was beyond thrilled to see 'Dr. Bones' again. Every time Booth had spoken to Parker since their last weekend together, the little boy had asked about Brennan or reminded Booth of something she had said. Booth had no complaints; after all, Bones was his favorite thing to talk about too. And it pleased him greatly that his son had formed an attachment to her so quickly.

Not so much with Rebecca. Parker had talked her ear off about Brennan as well, and she had called Booth only a few hours after picking Parker up from his apartment. At first she had angrily assumed that Booth had introduced his son to a new girlfriend without warning her about it first. Not that she gave Booth any such courtesy when she brought her boyfriends around Parker. It was one of many double standards Booth was expected to keep straight in his mind.

The conversation was the only time he had been glad to be able to say that Brennan was his work partner and nothing more. Of course, the 'nothing more' part had been a white lie. They might not have verbalized their feelings or made love yet, but they had certainly never been 'just partners.'

Booth decided not to warn either Rebecca or Parker that Brennan might be spending time with them today, rationalizing that pissing Rebecca off this close to Christmas was a dangerous thing to do. So when Parker realized where they were and who was approaching the SUV to get in, he practically shrieked her name with glee.

Brennan heard him through the closed vehicle doors, and she smiled at him, returning his excited wave. By the time she had climbed into the passenger seat and looked back at him, the little boy was bouncing against the straps of his booster seat.

"Dr. Bones! Are you coming to lunch with us?"

"Yes, is that okay?" Brennan asked with mock concern. Obviously it was more than okay.

"YES! Are you coming shopping with us too?"

Brennan hesitated and glanced at Booth in surprise. He answered for her.

"Of course she is, Parks."

"Yay! We have to find presents for Pops, and Uncle Jared, and Mommy, and y-" He paused in confusion. "Daddy, you said we were buying something for Dr. Bones today too. We can't do that if she's with us." His tone implied that Booth must be completely ignorant to the rules of gift-purchasing.

"I know, buddy, that's ok. I'll take care of that on another day," Booth reassured him.

"Really, Booth, it's not necessary to get me anything. I don't even celebrate Christmas," Brennan insisted.

"We'll see," he told her with a wink. He knew how she felt about religion, but he was a little surprised to hear that she didn't celebrate Christmas at least in a secular way. Before he could do more than wonder about it though, his son was chattering about what he had asked Santa for, when they were going to go see Pops to exchange presents, and which Christmas cookies were his favorite.

He glanced at Brennan in amusement at his son and saw that she too was enjoying the boy's seemingly boundless energy.

"And Daddy says we have to get a present for Uncle Jared even though he doesn't like him because he's still family…" Brennan quirked an eyebrow in his direction at that one.

Booth cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Yeah, my brother and I… don't get along so well." She looked like she might respond, but Parker recommenced his verbal deluge.

"And when I asked Pops what he wanted for Christmas, he said to get him something that would make all of his 'lady-friends' think he's handsome. I think that means he wants to look nice so that one of them will be his girlfriend…" Brennan was smiling broadly at Parker's assessment. She had eventually remembered to ask who Pops was, and she and Booth had passed an enjoyable evening discussing the man over takeout. It was clear that he loved his grandfather very much and that the man had had an important role in Booth's upbringing. He never brought up his parents, and Brennan didn't ask, sensing that there was more hurt than happiness in his memories of his childhood. And that was certainly something she could identify with. She knew he would tell her when he was ready, and she would share more about her own childhood when she was ready. For now, they had simply been enjoying one another's company and the lack of a threat-namely Peter-hanging over them like a shadow.

"Perhaps he'd like a new tie," Brennan suggested cautiously.

"Maybe," Parker said. "Or a new shirt. He wears a lot of blue because he says it brings out his eyes, and the ladies like that."

Booth snorted a laugh. "Maybe I need to have a talk with Pops about his 'lady-friends,'" he said quietly to Brennan.

"I wouldn't worry about it, Booth. It is perfectly healthy for both men and women his age to engage in-"

"Bones!"

"What?" She looked put out at the interruption.

"You know, I'd have interrupted you the way you prefer, but I'm driving," Booth told her with a lowered voice and a wicked smile. She returned it. "You just gotta be careful what you say around Parker. He may not understand it, but he seems rather skilled at repeating things verbatim back to his mother."

"Oh," Brennan said, understanding now. "I'm sorry, I didn't intend to get you in trouble with her."

"No, it's alright," he soothed. "No harm done."

Parker resumed his rather one-sided discussion of their Christmas plans, and both adults spent most of the meal simply listening to him prattle on excitably. Seeing that Parker's meal consisted of chicken tenders, French fries, and rather a lot of ketchup, she quickly pushed some fruit from her plate onto his. She gave him a wink and told them that fruit would help his brain to develop.

Parker looked confused at her words, but Booth translated, "She means it'll make you smarter, kiddo." The boy's face lit up, and he shoveled the fruit obediently into his mouth. Booth was impressed. Parker was a notoriously picky eater, and he felt pretty sure that he'd tried the 'it'll make you stronger/faster/smarter' tactic with him before and never gotten results. But 'Dr. Bones' said it just once, and the kid actually asked for more fruit. Booth watched happily as she forked the rest of her fruit onto his son's plate.

She felt his gaze and turned to meet it, blushing slightly at the affection she saw there.

"I'll give you a call the next time I can't get him to eat his vegetables," Booth joked. Brennan shared his smile and realized that they'd been looking at each other for perhaps a little too long when Parker raised his voice to get their attention. He was ready to leave, having finished Brennan's fruit and most of the rest of his food as well.

Shopping was an enjoyable experience for all of them, even if Brennan did feel out of her element. She gave gifts for birthdays or accomplishments like graduations, but she hadn't been Christmas shopping in fourteen years. Booth noticed her discomfort and chose not to say anything for the moment. However he did reach out to take her hand as they walked through the stores with Parker.

His action surprised her at first, but she didn't pull her hand away, and to anyone else in the mall that day, they appeared to be simply a family doing some last-minute holiday shopping.

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On the evening of December twenty-third, Booth strolled into the lab with exactly the kind of gift Brennan loved: mysterious remains. He found her on the platform, as usual, and he cheerfully explained the context of the find, handing her the corresponding file.

"It's not a suicide," she said decisively.

"Why not? Hole in the head, you see the gun, it's a suicide."

"He shoots himself in the head and somehow his arm ends up across his chest? Bring in the skeleton; I'll prove it wasn't a suicide." Booth smiled at her happily.

"Merry Christmas, Bones," he said, then turned his head toward the glass doors and whistled. "Come on, boys, bring it in!"

Brennan was amused but not entirely surprised that he'd anticipated her desire to look at the remains firsthand. Though she admitted that it was perhaps the oddest Christmas gift she'd ever received.

Brennan argued with Angela over whether or not the remains took precedence over the Jeffersonian Christmas party, and Booth somehow got roped into taking her place as the person in charge of drunk Angela. He needed to head out to finish his shopping, but Angela wasn't taking no for an answer. He managed to extricate himself from her grasp about twenty minutes later, however, and returned to the lab to tell Brennan goodbye on his way out.

Or so he thought.

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Brennan seemed to be the only one untroubled by the quarantine, and she watched somewhat passively as everyone around her griped and complained about being locked in the lab over Christmas.

"So let me get this straight," Booth said tersely. "The Squint Twins here decide to unleash a potentially deadly virus, and now you want to keep us locked in here with it for days?"

"The antifungal cocktail should prevent any contamination that hasn't already taken place. But we can't let you leave until we know for sure that no one has already contracted it." The unfamiliar man was in a helmeted bio-hazard suit, which really should have been enough to convey his point. Now he and his helpers were circling the group to administer the injections.

Booth grumbled as he dropped his pants to reveal a rather festive pair of boxers and received his shot. He pulled his pants back up quickly, and Brennan's disappointment must have been evident on her face, because when she looked back to his face, it was split with a wide grin. She rolled her eyes at him, but continued to make eye contact as she lowered the back of her jeans just enough to receive her shot. Her expression remained unchanged in spite of the needle, and nothing was revealed, other than to the unknown lab tech. But Booth found it to be more than a little provocative.

He tried to focus on what the squints were saying. It sounded like they were still trying to figure out who was to blame for the lockdown. But their voices began to gradually sound more distant, and the gleaming surfaces of the lab seemed to take on a vibrant glow. It was mesmerizing.

"You know what?" Booth said, dazed. "I never realized how pretty all this shiny stuff is…"

"That is so not fair," Hodgins groaned.

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Brennan couldn't focus. He was way too close. What the hell was he talking about now? Brennan thought hazily.

"You know, you don't know if you're sick, but you're more than willing to take drugs just in case. It seems to me you could give 'the man upstairs' the same benefit of the doubt that you do an invisible fungus." Booth grinned at her, mere inches away from her face. He seemed rather proud of what he felt was a sound argument, especially considering that he hadn't felt this messed up since his Army days.

His eyes struggled to focus on hers instead of down at her chest where they seemed to be drawn. She noticed and it made it all the more difficult for her to come up with some sort of response to his nonsense about God.

"I think you should probably go back to sleep," she said in a near whisper. Booth sighed dramatically and looked at her intently.

"I don't want to," he said in a manner similar to a stubborn child. "Unless I can sleep with you." Booth drew out the last word and ended it with a rather unmasculine giggle.

She couldn't resist the smile she felt spreading slowly on her face. Brennan remembered all too well that their circumstances had been reversed just a few weeks ago. Booth had been helpful, respectful, and supportive. She owed him the same in return, she thought.

"Well, I don't think it's such a good night for that," she said, rising from her seat and pulling him up from his. "But how about if you lay on the couch in my office, and I'll keep you company." Booth grinned like a cheshire cat and didn't fight her as she walked him in that direction.

"That sounds nice." Brennan nodded tolerantly as they made it through her doorway and over to the couch. He permitted her to settle him on it but noticed a problem.

"Um… someone stole your pillows, Bones!" He looked through the windows at the lab as though the mysterious pillow thief might be hiding in plain sight.

"No, the others are just using them for the night. It's okay."

"Oh," Booth said, cheerful again. "Well you can be my pillow then." And before she could summon a reply, he had gripped her wrist and pulled her down onto the couch with him. She landed on the end nearest the door, and Booth wasted no time stretching out on the rest of it and laying his head in her lap.

Brennan wasn't sure what the 'right thing to do' was in this situation. His position felt innocent as well as deviant, somehow. She supposed she should just search for something more appropriate that he could lay his head on. But as she looked down at him to voice the idea, she saw that his eyes had closed already. _So much for not wanting to sleep,_ she thought sarcastically.

She sighed and adjusted her posture to a more comfortable position, trying to decide where to put her hands. She ended up resting one on his upper arm and the other on his head. Brennan's left hand stroked his hair gently and seemingly of its own accord. Her eyes catalogued each muscle and bone, and she watched his expansive chest rise and fall rhythmically as he slept. The effect was mesmerizing, and her fatigue soon caught up with her as well.

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Booth had managed to wrap both arms around her waist as he slept. He woke with his face burrowed against her stomach, inhaling her sweet scent, and he squeezed her just a little tighter. Brennan stirred at the compression and moaned softly, hating the morning. The sound of her moan elicited one from Booth, though for entirely different reasons. She didn't want to get up: he already was, he thought regretfully.

"Well don't you two look cozy," a voice said from near the door.

Booth removed his arms quickly and sat up, praying that his body's response to her wouldn't be obvious. Brennan was slowly opening her eyes to meet his, and they both turned to look wearily at Angela. Brennan spoke first.

"Is there something you need, Ange?"

"They sent coffee and food," Angela explained. I volunteered to come look for you since neither of you were in your sleeping bags when everyone woke up this morning."

"Okay, thanks." She turned her attention to Booth now, who looked much more lucid than he had the night before. "How do you feel?" Brennan asked him.

"I'm good I think. Normally after a night feeling like that I'd expect a hangover," he chuckled.

"Well, you weren't really intoxicated," she explained. "It was only a temporary side effect."

"Right," Booth agreed, determined not to look at Angela, who was still standing near the door watching them with a satisfied smile. Her presence had managed to tamp down his body's morning state, and he supposed he should be grateful for that much, at least.

"We'll be there in a minute, Ange," Brennan told her firmly. Angela reluctantly took her cue to leave, and when she had gone, Brennan turned to him. "Are you really feeling better?" Now that she was more awake, the details of last night were coming back to her.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for putting up with me," he said with a self-deprecating smile.

Brennan nodded. "Anytime," she said quietly. Her eyes were sincere, and Booth read quite a bit more in them than what her words conveyed.

"Bones…" He started, not entirely sure how to say what he wanted. "Once this lockdown mess is over, I really want to talk...you know, about… us."

She smiled shyly. "I think that would be a good idea." Brennan paused, wondering if they could talk about just one part of it now. "I agree that we shouldn't really discuss all of it at work, but could I ask you just one thing?"

"Of course."

"You um...never told me how that research of yours went. With your FBI employee handbook."

His face lit up in understanding, and he smiled broadly at her.

"Well… so far as I can tell-and this is after quite a lot of research-there's nothing that says consultants or contracted employees are bound by the same non-fraternization rules." Her breathing hitched as he spoke, but she didn't interrupt. "The only people who could really tell you what to do in that situation would be the Jeffersonian. And judging by how the hoity-toits were singing our praises at that gala, I don't think that would be an issue."

She was momentarily distracted by the word she didn't understand but decided to come back to it.

"So… Cullen wouldn't be able to dissolve our partnership? Because I really don't think he likes me."

Booth laughed a little uncomfortably. "You may be right about that, but he would have to find another excuse if he really wanted to do that. The FBI can't tell you what to do with your personal life," he said with a warm smile. "Now, I could see him telling us to keep it professional at work, but I figured you would insist on that anyway."

"Of course," she said quickly. "Although…" her mind was back at the Costellos' home for a brief moment, feeling the chill race through her body when he spoke so low and softly into her ear. "Nevermind," she said quickly.

Booth didn't push; he knew exactly where her thoughts had gone, and his had followed them. Maintaining a professional facade would be difficult, but he was sure they could get the hang of it.

"I'm sure we could handle it," he reassured her. He very much wanted to have the rest of this conversation that very instant, but as luck would have it, they were interrupted yet again by Angela, yelling at them to get out there for breakfast.

Brennan sighed at her friend's impeccable timing. "You go," she said. "I'm not ready to eat just yet."

"Yeah, okay," he agreed, getting up. "I can bring you some coffee though." His tone tempted her, and she huffed a laugh in response.

"That sounds good."

He flashed a charm smile at her and was gone.

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 **Alright guys, next chapter is THE chapter. Please let me know you're still with me! :)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Okay, folks. The rating has been changed, and I am _ridiculously_ nervous to post this chapter. I've never written anything bearing any resemblance to smut, so please please give me a moment of your time to review. The next chapter came out a little steamier actually, but if anyone thinks this one is too much, I can go back and edit what I have for Ch. 11.**

 **Side note: I'm introducing a familiar BB location into the story a bit early. Again, because it appeared on the show without preamble. You'll know it when you see it.**

 **As always, thank you so very much for your feedback. :) It means a lot!**

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Chapter 10

"Ah, nice of you to join us," Angela said playfully. She and the rest of the group stood around a small cart full of coffee and pastries. They all turned to look at him as he approached.

"Are you back with us?" Goodman asked, referring to his mental state the previous evening.

"Yeah, I think so," Booth replied evenly.

"Since we're gonna be stuck together for Christmas, we should make the most of it," Angela announced.

"How?" Booth asked.

"We'll decorate this place and exchange handmade gifts."

"An excellent idea, Miss Montenegro," Goodman complimented.

Zach and Hodgins agreed quickly as well.

"How about Bones?" Booth asked. _She shouldn't be left out, even if she did seem to hate Christmas,_ he thought. But everyone was shaking their heads emphatically. "Aw, come on. What's the deal with Bones and Christmas?"

Angela regarded him cautiously for a moment before speaking.

"Last night before she got it into her head to work through the night, I spun a little story about young lovers running off to Paris. But the man never shows up, and the woman is left wondering what happened to him. I say 'Imagine what that must have been like.' And Brennan says 'I don't have to.'"

Booth understood that Angela had been referring to the victim he had brought into the lab the day before, but was still confused.

"Yeah, I… I still don't get it."

"Oh my God," Goodman said.

"What?"

Angela answered, "Brennan's parents disappeared just before Christmas when she was fifteen."

"And she never knew what happened to them," Goodman finished for her.

"Oh God…" Booth said. "That explains a lot." He pictured a young Temperance in his mind then; a child alone on Christmas morning with no idea where her parents had gone. His heart ached painfully for her, and he remembered that they still hadn't told each other much about their childhoods. There was so much he wanted to learn about her. He wanted to know all of it; to smile with her over happy memories, to hold her while she talked about the unhappy ones… And he wanted to share those things about himself as well. He wanted it all.

Around him, the squints were arguing about the best way to pick a Secret Santa, and he snapped out of it enough to help them draw names out of a bowl. He had drawn Goodman and hoped that some wonderful gift idea would come to him. The only hand-made craft he'd ever been skilled enough to manage was origami…

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The day progressed slowly as the team complied details on the case at a more leisurely pace than they generally adopted. The man who most likely committed the murder had been dead for over twenty years, so it was really just a matter of solving the puzzle of the victim's final days. It eased their boredom to have a goal, and Booth participated in the game as well. Brennan had said she wanted to solve the mystery, and he decided that helping her would at least be a way to connect with her on a holiday that made her sad.

The night before, he had discussed Parker with Goodman, and the man had used the term 'vague' to describe his parental rights. Booth had been about to say that they were _bullshit_ , but let it pass. He argued with Rebecca over the phone about allowing Sid to bring Parker to the lab for a little while. Lately it seemed that her default response to anything he said or suggested was to argue. He didn't know if it made her feel like she had more control over their situation or if she just really hated Booth that much, but it had definitely begun to wear on him. And he was terrified that one wrong move, one wrong word from Booth would have her pulling their son away from him entirely. That was something Booth couldn't risk. So he took it. Her nastiness, her pettiness, her manipulations. His son was worth it, he told himself. Worth everything.

He found Brennan and Angela in the lounge that afternoon, and before he had said anything to announce his presence, he overheard enough to realize what they were talking about.

"So, you knew Booth had a kid?" Angela asked her in surprise.

"Yes," Brennan replied simply.

"Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't _he_ say anything? I mean a kid is a big part of someone's life…"

"I assume he had his reasons for not sharing with the group, Ange. I didn't tell you because it never came up, but even so I probably wouldn't have. It's really not my place."

Booth smiled fondly at her answer. He had certainly never intended to keep Parker a secret from anyone; it was like she said-it just never came up. He hadn't known that Goodman had children until last night either. Though he supposed the squints probably had. Booth decided to speak up at that point.

"Hey, Bones. Lionel had a suit here made in town. The tailor shop, it still exists. The guy's grandson owns it. But get this: they kept their records. We may be able to find Careful Lionel's last name." Letters in the man's pocket had given them his first name, but it wasn't much to go on.

"Careful Lionel?"

"Yeah, little guy, toupee, drank a vitamin tonic, carried his own compass, all of his stuff just so. Careful Lionel. What was he so worried about?"

"Well, considering how he ended up…"

Angela interrupted then, "You have a son?"

"Yeah," he answered, looking at her placidly.

"You've never mentioned that," she accused lightly.

"Well, nothing brings people together like a Christmas lung fungus."

Booth's phone rang then; the tailor shop was calling him back. The man on the other end told him the name was Lionel Little and that he had never returned for the rest of his order-his wedding shirt.

As he thanked the tailor and disconnected the call, Brennan sneezed. Their eyes widened simultaneously. Early onset of Valley Fever mimicked the common cold.

"Bones…" he said, strained.

"I'm sure it's fine," she assured him, trying to keep her tone even. "I haven't had any other sym-" Her words were interrupted by a second sneeze. When she had recovered, she spoke again. "The air in the lab is dry, I'm sure that's all it is."

Booth wanted to believe her, and he forced himself _not_ to ask her what would happen if she was actually sick, choosing to remain as calm as possible.

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Dinner that evening consisted of take-out containers littered over the light table in the Bone Room. Booth was mildly disturbed by having a meal on a surface which frequently held skeletal remains, but no one else seemed to mind. The conversation wove around their victim, the mysterious woman who wrote him the love letters that were found with him, and the fact that the woman had probably been pregnant, possibly seeking an abortion.

"You know what? This isn't a very Christmas Eve type story," Angela cut in.

"Of course it is," Brennan shrugged. "The whole Christ myth is built upon the travails of an unwed mother." Typically Booth didn't rise to the occasion when she started voicing her opinions on religion, but it was Christmas Eve, and not only would he miss the midnight mass he usually enjoyed, he was also missing his son.

"Okay, can we just stop bringing up the 'whole Christ myth' thing? Some people believe it's more than a myth," he reminded her.

"Who besides you?"

"That would be me, Dr. Brennan," Goodman said, raising his hand slightly. "I'm a deacon at my church."

"I do. Christmas and Easter anyway," Angela replied.

"Although I believe organized religion is just another political movement designed to control the masses," Hodgins said cheerfully. "It doesn't mean God doesn't love me."

Brennan turned to Zack, who said, "Hey, I'm a rational empiricist all the way. Unless you talk to my mother. Then I'm Lutheran." Everyone chuckled lightly.

"I stand corrected," Brennan said quietly, shaking her head.

A few minutes later, family visiting time was announced, and Goodman took the first turn. They left the table one by one, and Booth pulled Brennan aside.

"Hey, come talk to Parker with me. I'm sure he'll be really excited to see you," Booth told her. She shifted in awkward surprise at the invitation.

"I don't know, Booth. It's Christmas, isn't it supposed to be about spending time with family? I don't want to impose-"

"Hey, there's more than one kind of family, right?" She looked up into his eyes at those words, not quite able to believe that he meant it the way it had sounded. "Plus, you know you're practically my kid's favorite person in the world right now. Getting to see you might make him feel better about his Christmas being screwed up."

She swallowed back the emotion that had tightened her throat and smiled a little hesitantly.

"If you're sure it's ok… I mean, you really don't need to include me because you feel sorry for me, Booth."

"Hey, none of that," he told her firmly. "And of course it's ok. I want you there."

Brennan considered him doubtfully for another moment, but agreed with a nod and a smile.

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Booth had predicted Parker's reaction perfectly, of course. The little boy began to jump and wave frantically when he spotted her. Booth threw her an 'I told you so' smile, and they both took the bluetooth receivers that were handed to them. Parker wore a matching one.

"Merry Christmas buddy!" Booth told him, smiling broadly at his son.

"Merry Christmas Daddy! Merry Christmas Dr. Bones!"

"Merry Christmas to you too, Parker," Brennan chuckled.

"I'm really sorry we're missing our Christmas together, Parks. I promise we'll do presents just as soon as we can though, okay?"

Parker nodded and smiled. "It's okay, Daddy. Mommy's going to take me to church in the morning instead, and I still get to open presents at her house."

"That's great, buddy. You be good at church, and make sure you tell your mom thank you for your presents, right?"

"I know. Did you give Dr. Bones her present yet?" Parker asked excitedly. Booth laughed.

"Not yet, but I will, I promise." Brennan looked at him in surprise, but before she could ask, Parker was speaking to her again.

"There are lots of people waiting for a turn. Is your family coming to see you too, Dr. Bones?"

Brennan was taken off guard by his innocent question, and Booth searched anxiously for the right way to distract his son. But Brennan answered him with patience.

"Not this year, Parker. But I'm glad I got to see _you_." His smile lit up his entire face, and he touched the glass.

"Me too!"

Brennan laughed and touched her hand to the glass as well before saying, "I'm gonna give you some time alone with your dad, okay?" He nodded. "Merry Christmas, Parker."

"Merry Christmas!"

She smiled at Booth and removed the earpiece. He wanted to tell her to stay, but he sensed easily enough that she needed a little space. Both of them watched her walk way, and Booth turned back to his son, touching the glass where his little hand was still pressed. He talked to him for another few minutes before conceding that it was Zack's turn to see his family. Apparently the numerous people Parker had referred to were all there for Zack.

He found Brennan in Angela's office, and yet again Booth realized that he might be interrupting them. So he stayed silent for long enough to hear the emotion in Brennan's voice, and then he _couldn't_ speak.

"...and Christmas Eve, when I was asleep, he snuck down and made Christmas, trying to do the right thing for me," Brennan told Angela. Neither had seen Booth approach.

"Christmas for his little sister," Angela agreed with an empathetic smile. Brennan nodded.

"But when I came down and saw the lights and the presents…"

"You thought your parents were back," Angela said in sudden comprehension.

"I just expected to see them, sitting there, drinking their coffee, watching Russ and me open our presents."

"Oh my God."

"I kind of lost it," Brennan said with a voice full of guilt. "I refused to open the presents until they came back… It was like I told Russ he wasn't enough family for me." She paused, sniffling a bit. "Before New Year's, he went out west to work, and I was in the foster system."

Booth stood, stunned at her words, and tried to make his voice work properly. He had wrongly assumed that her brother had been in the system with her, and it shocked him to hear that her brother was practically the _reason_ she had ended up there. Booth hoped for his sake that he wouldn't be meeting the guy any time soon. Angela spotted him then, and he was finally able to locate his voice.

"Excuse me," he said softly. Brennan turned to look at him. She saw the emotion in his face immediately and guessed that he had overheard at least a little of what she had told Angela. She smiled at him reassuringly, hopefully communicating that he'd heard nothing she didn't want him to hear. He told them that they had managed to get the victim's missing persons file, and Brennan rose to follow him from the office.

"The tree is really, really beautiful, Ange. Really." Angela smiled in response but didn't follow them. Booth smiled at her words, knowing that Brennan was attempting to make up for her anti-Christmas attitude, and he felt another surge of affection for her. Booth hoped this would be the last Christmas she spent feeling like she didn't have a family.

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At Angela's persuasion, Brennan spent the rest of the night making phone calls to track down their victim's former fiancee. Around her, the rest of the group finished up with their Secret Santa gifts and placed them beneath Angela's holographic tree. It was early morning when Brennan finally located the woman, Ivy Gillespie, at an assisted living facility in Maryland.

Brennan joined the group in Angela's office to watch what she had done with the holographic Christmas tree, but she slipped out quietly before the gift exchanging began. Booth watched her go sadly. Zack had drawn Booth's name for Secret Santa, and the robot he'd given him would definitely make Parker happy. Booth watched the rest of them open their gifts and was struck by the odd collection of people he could now call his friends. They were Brennan's people, but he felt a fair bit of kinship to them as well. He supposed it simply wasn't possible to spend so much time together without bonding, at least a little.

Within seconds of their Valley Fever test results returning clear, there was a general sense of mass exodus from the lab. It was still Christmas Day, and they could make it home to their families to salvage at least a part of their holiday. Brennan was the only one who remained still on the platform stairs, watching them all leave.

Booth turned back, however, hesitant to leave her alone. She rolled her eyes at him a little, but smiled.

"Go. Go have Christmas. Wish Parker a Merry Christmas for me."

He pursed his lips and sighed. "I'm at Wong Foo's if you decide you want company." Brennan gave him a small nod. "Merry Christmas, Bones."

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Booth grinned in satisfaction as Brennan scooted onto the barstool next to him. She had come to tell him about Ivy Gillespie and priceless coins, but Booth was only half listening. She had accepted his invitation twice now. Would she accept it again? He wanted her to know what she had a place with him, as family, on holidays and every day in between.

"Parker will be here soon," he told her. "You should come home with us. Open some presents, drink some more eggnog, have dinner…"

Booth watched her reaction closely. She was considering it, he could tell, but not in a way that made Booth think she would accept.

"I'm honored that you would want me there," she told him with a gentle smile. "But I think that today at least, your little boy deserves to have you all to himself." She watched his face fall slightly, but he didn't argue with her logic. She sought to smooth it over. "But the next time he's with you, we could take that tour of the museum I promised him. If that's okay with you."

"That sounds great, Bones," he said. "Are you sure you won't come over today though? I promise you wouldn't be intruding on anything."

"Thank you, but… today should be his and yours." Brennan kept the smile on her face to reassure him.

Booth sighed in resignation. "Okay. Well, if you change your mind… you know where I live." He winked at her and turned toward the door of the restaurant to see his son come in. Booth stood quickly and swept the little boy into a bear hug. He stood up with the child in his arms and pointed to Brennan, whispering in Parker's ear.

"Merry Christmas Dr. Bones!"

"Merry Christmas, Parker. Have fun opening your presents!" Brennan's smile was genuine as she waved goodbye to them. She sat for only a few more minutes before paying their bill and heading back to the lab.

When she turned on the lights and observed the large empty space, still decorated for Christmas, she felt the ache in her chest ease slightly. The lab felt more like home in a way no other place had done since she was fifteen. She had spent the holidays in many places since then. A fair number of them had been spent in dorm rooms, and after graduate school she had diligently arranged to be out of the country during the holiday season. This year she had wanted to be in Niger, but Goodman had vetoed the trip.

It seemed appropriate that she spend Christmas at the lab rather than her empty apartment. One place was where she slept; the other was home. If anyone had asked her why she kept old, unopened Christmas gifts in a closet in her office, she wasn't sure she could have given them a satisfactory answer other than simply: it felt right. It wasn't the first time in fourteen years that she had held them in her hands. In her weaker moments, she had thought of simply throwing them away. She must have moved them several dozen times between foster homes, college dorms, and other relocations. But she had never opened them.

As she gazed again at the gift in her hand, the garish wrapping paper began to warp. Her tears were spilling over her lashes now. It was time to put this hurt behind her. She had allowed it so much control over her personal life, and that had to stop. Her family had left her. She had accepted that long ago but never healed from it. In fact, she had basically run in the opposite direction from any kind of healing, avoiding even the discussion of it at all costs. That had to end as well.

So her family had left her. That was hard. But Booth telling her that there was more than one kind of family and showing her that he wanted her to be part of his… It had shaken loose a new kind of determination within her. Brennan wasn't willing to let her past dictate her future anymore. Because she realized now that that was exactly what she'd been doing. She wasn't going to push Booth away as she had so many others. He was different, in every way that mattered.

Brennan smiled a little through her tears at the sight of her mother's familiar handwriting and at a gift for a teenage girl who had loved science. She felt as though a significant weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and she hugged the objects to her chest while tears streamed over her cheeks.

Eventually they subsided, and she placed the gift on one of her office shelves. It seemed to fit well with other relics of her past: artifacts she had brought home from foreign places, academic awards and accolades…things she treasured. She gazed at it for a moment but then turned to slip her lab coat back on. She grabbed a few files from her desk before heading down to modular bone storage in the basement. _Limbo_ , she thought wryly. As much as the name might irritate her, she had to admit that it fit rather well.

It would be a late night, she knew. But that didn't bother her. She would rather have been working than doing anything else that night. That's just who she was.

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Not long after Parker had been picked up the following morning, Booth finally gave in to the urge to check on Brennan. He hoped that maybe she would agree to lunch. But after several attempts to reach her by phone, he grew concerned. He had tried her cell, her home, and her office lines, and he had not been able to reach her on any of them. Booth remained calm and drove over to her place, hoping that it was a simple matter of a dead cell battery and a malfunctioning land line.

Her car wasn't in the parking garage. He checked the entire level before riding the elevator up to her floor. She didn't answer his knocks, but he was pleased to see that the new lock hadn't been tampered with. _She must have slept at the lab again,_ he thought with disapproval. He _hoped_ that was what had happened. Peter was still in jail; there was no reason to panic.

But when he found her office empty, anxiety rippled through him. Her cell phone sat on her desk, as did her shoulder bag. Her coat hung on the rack near the door. Booth stepped back through the doorway and quickly scanned the lab. His anxiety must have been evident on his face, because a security guard hailed his attention from the glass doors. Booth crossed to him quickly.

"She's down in Limbo, Agent Booth. Been there all night." The man's tone made and expression made it clear that he didn't approve of Brennan's actions any more than Booth did.

"Thank you," Booth told him, relieved. He turned for the stairwell which led to the lower level and took the stairs more slowly now that his panic had eased.

Sure enough, there she was. Brennan had pulled a chair up to an exam table which held a set of skeletal remains that appeared to have been burned. She was laying with her head resting on her arm, fast asleep. Booth watched for a few moments, enjoying the look of peace that always enveloped her while she slept.

Kneeling next to her chair, he woke her gently with a hand moving against her hair.

"Bones," he said softly. "Bones… Time to wake up, sleeping beauty." She stirred, opening her eyes slowly and taking in her surroundings. Brennan sat up, looking a little embarrassed to have been discovered sleeping next to a set of remains.

"Booth," she said hoarsely. Brennan cleared her throat and tried again. "Why are you here? Do we have a case?"

He shook his head and asked, "Why are you sleeping down here? You should have gone home, gotten a decent night's sleep in a bed. You stayed up all night on Christmas Eve."

Brennan shrugged noncommittally, but smiled at him. "Not the first time I've fallen asleep at a lab table, Booth. I'm sure it won't be the last."

He grunted slightly and held a hand out toward her. "Come on, we're getting breakfast. No arguing." She surprised him by taking his hand with a smile and allowing him to pull her to her feet. His surprise grew exponentially when stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.

Booth's arms curled around her as well, and they stood for a few moments, simply holding each other. Brennan pressed her face into the place where his neck and shoulder met, breathing him in as deeply as she could. The sensation sent tremors through his body, and he squeezed her even tighter. After another moment, she spoke.

"You said to tell you when I was ready to talk about things," she said haltingly, unsure of her words but not the motivation behind them. She pulled back in his arms so that she could see his face properly. "I'm ready."

His smile, like Parker's, lit up his whole face. "Yeah?"

She nodded and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "Yes." And their lips met again, more firmly this time. Brennan felt the heat uncurling within her as he deepened the kiss and crushed her to him gently.

They broke apart a few moments later, each of them breathing heavily.

"Maybe we should just get some food at my place," Booth suggested playfully, only half kidding. Brennan laughed.

"I think that sounds very appealing," she said, not missing the innuendo. "But I do feel like there are some things I need to explain before we have intercourse." Her smile was slightly timid.

"I'm more than happy to hear whatever you have to say, Bones. But you don't owe me an explanation. I never minded waiting for you. I would have been a fool to do otherwise." She smiled at him again, feeling somehow weightless and not even considering that such a thing was impossible.

"I need to put this away, but then we can go?" Brennan asked, gesturing to the remains still laid out on the table. He nodded but snuck one more kiss before releasing her completely. Booth watched as she donned a fresh pair of gloves and moved each bone carefully from the table back into its box. She disappeared down a corridor to put the drawer back in its place then returned to his side.

He couldn't resist the urge to pull her into his arms again, kissing her soundly. She didn't stop him but instead ran her hands over the thick muscles of his arms, to his shoulders, and still upward to push her fingers into his hair. His tongue caressed her bottom lip gently, and Brennan moaned at the contact. She knew they couldn't do this here though, and she ended the kiss while she still had the cognitive ability to do so. Booth groaned, wanting her.

"We can't do this here," she said breathlessly.

"Yeah, I know…" Booth replied regretfully. "I suppose there are security cameras."

"Probably," she agreed. "But there are none in my office." She gave him that devilish smile he had come to adore, and he laughed in amusement.

"I'll remember that. You do, however, still have rather a lot of windows."

"So does your office," she said thoughtfully, as they began to climb the stairs together.

"Yeah… Is it wrong that I feel like that's something of a challenge to be met?" She grinned appreciatively at his words as she answered.

"Not at all."

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They did end up eating in, as he had suggested. And within an hour of leaving the lab, they were seated on his couch with their food containers spread over his coffee table.

"So… why now? Why today?" Booth asked hesitantly. She smiled at him and then down at her plate as she carefully worded her answer.

"Because waiting even one more day seemed unbearable," she told him. He smiled broadly. "I… I've never been good at relationships, Booth. It almost always ends badly, and the thought of starting something with you and then hurting you because of how I am… It scared me. It still does," she rambled uncertainly.

"Hey," he said gently, taking her hand in his. "I understand being scared, Bones. But I need you to give me a chance to prove that you don't need to be."

"I've already decided that, Booth," she assured him. "You're… different. I tend to talk myself out of romantic attachments with the logic that eventually-everyone leaves. So what makes this man or that man any different? But… it's different this time because _you're_ different. You're different than anyone I've ever known, romantically or otherwise. You understand me better than anyone ever has, even my parents before…" She recentered herself a bit before continuing. "You make me feel like I deserve to be happy. No one has made me feel that way in a very long time."

"You do, Bones. You deserve to be happy, and loved, and cherished. Maybe you just needed the right person to remind you." He gave her a heartbreaking smile and moved a hand to the side of her face. She looked back at him wonder. How could it be possible that this wonderful, brave, compassionate man wanted _her_? Tears began to gather in her eyes at the thought, and he brushed them away with his thumb.

"What is it, Bones?" Booth asked in concern. The sight of Temperance Brennan crying wasn't something that could be unseen. It sent a clenching pain right to the center of his chest and made his eyes sting as well. "Please don't cry…"

"I'm sorry," she said, quickly blinking back her tears and trying to retain her normal tone. "I'm okay, I just…" How could she explain this? How could she tell him that she didn't deserve him and risk losing him? She recoiled instantly at the thought. _But he needs to know what he's getting into,_ she thought. So with a deep breath, she trudged onward. "I'm afraid that one day, you'll wake up and realize you deserve so much better than me." He opened his mouth quickly to speak, but she brought her fingers to his lips to stop him. "There's a reason that I have a reputation for being a 'cold fish' or an 'ice queen.' And it has to do with more than simply my need to compartmentalize to be able to do my job. I seem to be rather emotionally stunted when it comes to relationships… damaged, you could say." She looked down at her lap for a moment, but he didn't try to speak this time. "You're such a good man, Booth. Kind, warm, generous... _brave_. So much of the world terrifies me sometimes, and I wish I had just a tenth of the courage you show me _every day_. People understand you when you speak; they like you. I've never been that person. I was awkward as a child, and I'm perhaps even more awkward as an adult.

"It's hard for me to comprehend why such a man would even bother with me. It defies logic, and that scares me. But… I have to let go of my past, I know that. I'm not going to let it get in the way of whatever this is between us-"

"Love, Bones." He simply couldn't hold the words inside any longer, and his eyes shone like the sun as he said them. "I'm in love with you, Temperance Brennan. And that won't change, no matter what happens in our lives, or how old we get, or how many times you tell me that you don't deserve me… Because the real irony here is that you have it completely backwards. It's me that doesn't deserve you. And I've known it since the beginning, since the moment I realized that you were special... _different_ , just as you said. Within five minutes, I _knew._ You told me you didn't believe in fate that day, and all I could do was hope and pray that maybe I'd have the chance to prove you wrong about that." He smiled at her look of shock when she realized just how long he'd had feelings for her. "Don't ever say that you're not good enough, Bones. You're _everything._ "

They leaned toward each other to rest their foreheads together, eyes closed. She was dazed. _He's in love with me?_ For all of the times that she'd ever told people about the chemical and hormonal explanations for feeling love, she couldn't summon a single detail of that right now. Because the truth had been staring her in the face for months. She loved him too. The thought brought a dazzling smile to her face, though her eyes were closed. But he watched her, hoping beyond hope that _he_ was the reason for such a smile.

She opened her eyes to meet his and leaned away just enough to focus on him.

"I'm in love with you too," she told him softly. And she spoke the words, the truth of them rang through her with even more conviction.

He seized her lips with his, unable to wait another second. The kiss deepened immediately, and their hands moved swiftly over each other's bodies as though desperate to touch every inch at the same time. Without conscious thought, she allowed him to pull her gently onto his lap, landing sideways with his arms wrapped around her torso. Hers looped around his neck and shoulders as he reclined her slightly into the arm of the couch.

He sucked her lower lip into his mouth and nibbled gently, sending a rush of flames to her center. Their breathing gradually accelerated until both were panting, grasping at one another with every touch and caress. Their tongues mated wildly in her mouth, with no hint of hesitation.

 _Was it possible to climax from a kiss?_ She wasn't sure. It seemed unrealistic, and yet she felt herself on the brink already. His hands hadn't even touched her yet, not really, not in her most intimate places. But she suddenly wanted them _everywhere_. She wanted to feel them on her skin, to measure the strength of them against her softness. Brennan felt like just one touch to her blazing skin would send her right over the precipice.

Booth was of a similar mind. Painfully hard and desperately trying to feel _more_ of her. The desire to be inside her hit him stronger than it ever had with any other woman. What they were doing now was really no more than making out, but he knew already that making _love_ to her would be more amazing, more intimate, more real than it had been with anyone before her. Because _she_ was more. She was all of those things. And she was _his_. The utter joy of the thought seared through him dizzyingly until the only thing that tethered him to the earth was her lips, her hands.

Booth felt her smile against his lips and couldn't bear the thought of missing it. When he pulled away to look at her, he was not disappointed. Her happiness radiated from every inch of her face, and her eyes were the lightest he'd ever seen them. The beauty of them halted the breath in his chest, and he smiled just as happily back at her.

They kissed again slowly-once, twice-before she spoke again.

"I love you, Seeley Booth."

His smile lit the room.

"I love _you_ , Temperance Brennan." He felt high again. But it was a thousand times better than anything he could get from a medicinal side effect. That wore off, and Booth felt like _this_ high never would. He knew there was more they needed to say, and certainly things she needed to know about him. But in that moment, he no longer feared that she might run from him after hearing those stories. He trusted her to stay, just as she was trusting him.

Their lips met again, gently at first, but their passions built again quickly. Brennan tightened her arms around his neck and arched her body into his, relishing the feel of his hard chest against her breasts. Booth's arms pulled her nearer as well, and he moved a hand from behind her back slowly, running the length of her side, to her hip, and over the curve of her ass. His hand gripped almost involuntarily as he sought to bring her closer still. Brennan moaned into his kiss and rocked her hips backward into his touch, conveying with perfect clarity that it was time to move from the couch.

He slid his arms underneath her more securely, and Brennan felt herself being lifted into the air as he stood. Their lips disconnected for a moment so that he could navigate around the furniture and down the short hallway, but Brennan couldn't overcome her need to taste him. She tilted her head to brush her lips against the side of his neck, just below his ear, and heard his breath come out in a gasp at the contact. His pace quickened, and by the time she was running the tip of her tongue over that same place, he had gently kicked the bedroom door open and was lowering her to his bed.

Booth met her eyes then, recognizing that familiar gleam he'd seen only a few times before. It was impish and flirtatious… and _hot_. He took a ragged breath to calm himself and resisted the urge to rip the layers of fabric that separated them that very instant. He sank to the floor on his knees in front of where she sat on the bed, and her fingers glided through his hair before she caught his lips again.

This time it was _her_ teeth and tongue which taunted _him_ , and his hands moved to the hem of her shirt, lifting it carefully to reveal the perfect skin of her chest and stomach. She raised her arms into the air and broke their kiss for a moment so that he could remove the shirt completely. He looked down and groaned at the sight of her. Once again, he was struck by the lack of sufficient adjectives. _Gorgeous,_ he thought. And even that didn't do her justice.

As he was admiring the effect of her emerald lace bra against her pale skin, her small hands were busy with the buttons on his shirt. She managed to undo most of them before his lips crashed against hers once more, but she was fairly certain the last few had been ripped from the garment. She pushed the shirt backward over his shoulders and arms as their lips and tongues met over and over. Brennan wanted his skin against hers. The urge was so strong that she thought she felt her hands shake when they came to rest on the silver belt buckle at his waist.

Booth groaned at her touch and pulled her hands away gently. She whimpered in protest.

"If we don't take this slowly, it's going to be over way too soon, Bones."

She nodded, reconnecting their mouths but reaching behind her with one hand to unclasp her bra. She wriggled out of it and tossed it away from them, pulling him against her. The feel of her bare skin against his wreaked havoc on his self-control, and immediately his hands skimmed over her abdomen to her cover her breasts.

They moaned together, and Booth couldn't resist the urge to lower his head, suckling her sweet flesh gently. Brennan cried out when she felt his tongue on her nipple, tasting her and teasing her simultaneously. The ache between her legs was nearly unbearable. She laid back against the mattress, pulling him with her. The weight of him as he hovered over her body aroused her even further, and she moved her legs apart to cradle his hips.

Brennan rolled her hips against him then, eliciting a gasp of air over the breast he'd been exploring. He could feel her heat through the layers of clothing they still wore, and his jeans became even more uncomfortably snug. He didn't remove them yet, however. He knew that their clothing was basically the only thing limiting his pace for the moment.

Booth raised himself off of her and smiled at her groan of frustration when the contact was lost briefly. He moved his hands to the waistband of her pants and pulled them from her body slowly, allowing his fingers to stroke the length of each leg along the way. Her underwear matched the bra she'd been wearing; a mix of deep green lace and satin. They were beautiful, but he wanted to see _her._ He removed them slowly as well, this time tracing the contours of her leg with his lips. Brennan cried out again, revelling in his touch but aching for more.

"Please, Booth… please touch me."

Denying her didn't even cross his mind, and he groaned loudly as his fingers found her wet heat. He touched her lightly, allowing his fingertips to brush against her slowly, avoiding her clit as a means of building her up even more. He wanted to make her come at least once before he was inside her, because he knew that afterwards the tiny shreds of self-control he held would be completely and utterly obliterated.

Brennan gave a long moan of pleasure and frustration, moving her hips against his touch to encourage contact where she needed it most. "Please…" she whimpered, begging for his touch now. She was rewarded almost instantly by the feel of his calloused thumb against her clit and voiced her gratitude. But he didn't stop there. His thumb maintained the connection while he slipped a long finger into her tight heat. His hand moved with slow skill that drove her to the edge, and when he added a second finger, she tumbled right over. She shouted with her climax, clenching his free arm with one hand and a fistful of bedsheets with the other. Booth kissed her deeply, hand still in place, and felt her spasms slow.

He removed his hand gently and wanted so badly to taste her, but that was going to have to wait. She must have agreed with his assessment, because her hands were undoing his belt with an urgency that matched his own. He stood for the briefest of moments to divest himself of his remaining clothing, and then he was poised above her again.

Brennan's eyes looked almost feverish with desire when they met his, and she arched up to join their lips again. He positioned himself at her entrance and forced himself to move slowly. He wasn't a small man, and the last thing he wanted was to hurt her. But Brennan had lost her patience for _slow_ , and she pushed her hips toward him, taking him partially inside of her. They both panted against one another's mouths, and Booth reached a hand to her face, stroking her cheek gently until she met his eyes again.

"Don't close your eyes," he pleaded. "They're so beautiful." And the naked emotion she saw in his own eyes humbled her. They watched each other as he pushed into her completely, and her mouth opened with a silent exclamation at the way he filled her. He didn't move for a few moments, relishing in the incredible tightness and warmth of her.

Again, it was Brennan who moved them. She wrapped her impossibly long legs around his hips, allowing him to sink deeper into her. "Bones," he moaned, unable to stop his hips from moving against hers. Brennan was beyond words at that point, feeling the tip of him against her cervix with each thrust. Their bodies moved together then, hands clutching, toes curling as the pace quickened.

She had never before felt so connected to another person. It was as though they occupied the same physical space, as impossible as she knew that to be. The sensation of it overwhelmed her, and once again she shattered beneath him. The rhythmic clenching of her inner walls sent Booth over the edge as well, and they cried out together as they rode the waves that overcame them.

As their breathing slowed gradually, their lips met again with tender sweetness.

"I love you, Bones." He told her in a voice thick with emotion. She hugged him against her with both arms _and_ legs, savoring the complete connection of their bodies in that moment.

"I love you too."

He moved gently from her then, collapsing next to her on the bed and gathering her into his arms.

"That was… that was…" Words failed him.

"Yes," she replied, sympathizing with the lack of ability to even form a coherent thought in order to describe what _that_ was.

"'Incredible' doesn't seem to cover it," he said disbelievingly. She nodded her head in agreement against his shoulder.

They laid quietly for a few minutes, their limbs and lips intertwined with loving caresses. She chuckled fondly as his stomach growled.

"I suppose we didn't end up eating much breakfast, did we?

"Suppose not," Booth answered, tilting his head to look into her silver-blue eyes. "How about we get cleaned up and go out for lunch. There's a little diner near the lab I've been wanting to try."

"Diners generally serve food with a bit more grease than I prefer," she countered playfully.

"Yeah, well…" He paused, wrapping a long arm completely around her waist. "A cheeseburger now and then wouldn't kill you." Booth laughed lightly at her expression.

"On the contrary-"

His lips ceased her biology lesson before it began, and when the kiss finally ended, she seemed to be a little dazed.

"You're right," he told her with a brilliant smile and one more peck to her soft lips. "That is most definitely the best way to silence you."

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She had insisted on showering together, "To save water, of course," which resulted in a nearly empty hot water tank by the time they were finished. And although it hadn't quite been lunch time when he suggested going out, by the time they actually stepped into the diner, it was half past two. Both of them were audibly hungry now, and they selected a table near the long row of windows.

As she had predicted, the Royal Diner did serve quite a lot of greasy foods, but she was pleased to see several salads on the menu which appealed to her. The diner was open 24 hours, it seemed, and they served the full menu all day. The place was clean and the atmosphere welcoming. The fixtures may have been a bit dated, but everything seemed well maintained.

A cheery looking waitress approached to take their drink and food orders, urging them to 'just give her a holler' if they needed anything. Booth smiled at her in thanks, and Brennan watched the young woman blush slightly before walking away. Booth didn't seem to have noticed the girl's reaction to his patented smile, but he did note the smirk on Brennan's face.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said with a shake of her head. Her smile grew a little wider.

"That's not nothing," he insisted, pointing at her expression. She rolled her eyes a little but answered.

"Our waitress seems to approve of your appearance. She was blushing."

Booth looked a little startled and glanced skeptically in the direction the waitress had disappeared.

"I guess I missed that," he told her, not really caring what their waitress thought of him so long as his burger was cooked the way he'd ordered.

"Yes, you do seem a bit oblivious when it comes to that sort of thing," she agreed.

"What's that supposed to mean? Besides, you are hardly one to talk. Didn't you specifically tell me that you never realize men are coming on to you until you notice _my_ reactions to them?"

She shrugged delicately, not taking the bait. "But _you_ are the people person. Shouldn't you be able to pick up on this sort of thing?" Brennan asked with a tic of her head toward the kitchen.

He smiled at her affectionately. "I stopped noticing things like that a while ago," he admitted.

"Oh?"

"Yup. Must've been around the time you agreed to work with me again."

Brennan looked down at the table between them, feeling her own blush color her cheeks.

"But don't think for a second that I miss a single one of _your_ blushes," he told her. Her eyes snapped back to him, and she gave a little grunt of protest.

"What? You make it sound like it happens all the time. I hardly ever blush."

"Sure, we'll go with that…" He conceded sarcastically. _She blushed all the time_ , he thought. It had been one of the first things that had made him realize she was attracted to him.

She was looking at him with playful skepticism and decided to change the subject.

"Have you thought much about… what to tell people?" Brennan asked him timidly.

"About us, you mean?"

She nodded. "I'm relieved that they can't sever our partnership, but I find that I _am_ a bit concerned about how people will take it."

"Meaning Angela?"

"Well… yes. But the rest of the team too. I'm sure they'll be very happy for us, but as a group they have a tendency to allow gossip to distract them from their work. I don't particularly like the idea of them discussing our relationship as though we were characters on a television show. Especially if it would hinder their ability to do their work."

Booth had grinned at the word 'relationship.' It was the first time either of them had referred to it out loud that way, and to hear her say it first gave him a tiny thrill. The waitress returned with their orders and asked if everything looked alright. They both nodded in the affirmative and thanked her before she walked away again.

"I tend to agree with you. I really don't want people gossiping about us either. At the lab or at the Hoover. They do that enough as it is, I think." He knew full well that there was massive speculation about the true nature of their partnership. Booth had studiously ignored it for the most part, with the occasional exception of a well-timed stare-down.

"People gossip about us at the FBI?" She seemed surprised by this, and he couldn't imagine why. He thought it must be obvious to everyone how he felt about her, and that in itself was reason enough to breed speculation.

"Well… yeah. I mean, maybe you haven't noticed it, but I'm crazy in love with you, and apparently it's pretty obvious to a lot of people," he told her with a teasing smile. She returned it with her own grin and yet another blush.

"I did notice… but I guess I didn't realize other people saw it too."

"Well they do. I would imagine that for most people who don't know actually know us, it won't be worthy of gossip for long. The _squints_ on the other hand…"

"Yes," she agreed. The team would torment them endlessly. "Would you be opposed to keeping it to ourselves for a little while? It's not that I want there to be some big secret, but… I want to enjoy being together for a little while, without all the scrutiny." She hoped she'd explained herself well enough that he didn't get the wrong impression. She didn't want him to think she was ashamed of being with him publicly. His thoughts seemed to share her direction.

"I'm fine with that, Bones. And I agree, it would be easier to adjust to being a couple without people gossiping about it all around us. Just as long as that's your only reason-"

"Of course it is," she insisted firmly. "I actually feel a rather uncharacteristic urge to tell _everyone_ , particularly the women in your office, that we are romantically involved…"

He gave her a huge smile. "Particularly the women, huh?"

Brennan smiled back and shrugged her shoulders a little. She knew it was irrational, but even if _he_ hadn't noticed the way women stared at him, _she_ certainly had. She'd spent the last few months telling herself it was none of her business who flirted with him or if he flirted back. Now, however…

"I admit that I might be feeling slightly possessive when it comes to women flirting with you," she said evenly. But his grin practically leapt off his face.

"And _I_ admit, that you being possessive turns me the hell on."

"Really?" Brennan asked in disbelief.

"Hell yeah," he answered immediately. "I'm pretty possessive of you too, Bones. I don't think that's news to anyone." She responded with the husky laugh that could make him hard in an instant.

"I don't think it is either."

"And how does it make _you_ feel?"

Brennan thought for a brief moment before answering.

"Wanted," she admitted quietly. They slipped into silence then, communicating only with their eyes for a few moments before turning their attention back to their half-eaten meals.

"These fries are really good, you should try one."

"That's okay. This salad is excellent also."

"You know, one fry won't kill you." He picked one up and held it to her lips. Brennan opened her mouth and accepted the food, letting the tip of her tongue graze his fingertip slightly. She saw him swallow convulsively and gave him a satisfied smile.

"You're right," she said. "They are pretty good."

"You really shouldn't be allowed to do things like that in public, you know," he chastised her mockingly. "Now we're going to have to sit here until I can get up from the table without causing a scene."

She giggled, pleased with herself, and stole another fry. "I'm sure we can think of something less… stimulating to talk about."

He sighed and leveled a pleading look at her before shaking his head.

"I wonder if they have pie…"

* * *

 **Be honest. I can take it. :)**


	11. Chapter 11

**I am beyond flattered by the wonderful feedback! Keep it coming! My next update might be delayed just a tiny bit. This weekend is my daughter's 9th birthday.**

 **To the guest who reviews every chapter with such forethought and kindness-please sign in so I can thank you personally! :)**

 **In this chapter, I gave Hodgins a bit more credit than the writers did, at least at that point. He is an intuitive, big-hearted guy, and I don't feel like I took him out of character so much as I allowed him to behave in a way that we now know would be typical of him. This is also a chapter without a case, because I felt like they needed some downtime to enjoy each other. We'll be back with the next episode in Ch 12.**

 **As I've said before, this one is quite a bit steamier. You've been warned. ;)**

Chapter 11

Booth drove her back to the Jeffersonian to pick up her car so that she could go home to change clothes. She was still wearing the outfit she'd put on Christmas morning. On the way, they agreed that he would stop by her apartment later for dinner and to finish up the paperwork on Careful Lionel. Since it wasn't a typical murder case for them-the assailant being already dead and no need to prosecute-the volume of paperwork was considerably less. Brennan knew that it would take both of them no time at all to finish up the documentation on their own, but getting together to do paperwork over dinner was another part of their routine that neither wanted to give up.

"So…" he said as they pulled into the parking structure, "There _are_ security cameras in here, right?"

She chuckled, understanding his implication. "Yes. But maybe we could work on figuring out where the blind spots are." His grin widened in response.

"Sounds like a plan."

He pulled up next to her car and let her out, promising to be at her place by seven. Brennan noticed that he waited until she was in her car and moving before pulling away, and she shook her head at the alpha-male display. She was definitely going to have a talk with him about that. There were certainly times that his protective nature appealed to her greatly, but she was still visited by the occasional desire to smack the back of his head and tell him to knock it off.

By six, Brennan had showered again and dressed very deliberately in a pair of exceptionally well-fitting jeans and a top that she had deemed 'too revealing for work' quite some time ago. She let her hair dry naturally, which gave it more curl than usual, and left it down. She decided to keep her makeup very natural as well, using just enough to emphasize her eyes and lips.

She had decided to cook for him and opted for Italian. Though she didn't eat much meat, chicken parmesan was one of her favorite dishes. Brennan knew that Booth tended to prefer red meat, but there hadn't been time for a grocery trip. Once dinner was in the oven, she tidied her already clean apartment and paced nervously.

She had no idea why she was anxious. They had declared themselves, agreed to be in a relationship. They'd had the most earth-shattering sex she'd ever experienced less than twelve hours ago. Why should she be nervous?

Brennan was still pacing when she heard his knock at the front door. She took a deep breath and gave her appearance a final check before letting him in. The expression on his face when he saw her was extremely flattering, and she knew that she had chosen her attire wisely. His eyes moved over her as though he were starving and she was the meal. It sent an immediate tremor through her body, ending in a slow ache between her thighs.

"Bones… Wow." Booth was speechless at the sight of her, especially since he knew that she had probably dressed with his reaction in mind. _She shouldn't be disappointed then_ , he thought. Every part of his anatomy was responding to every part of hers. He'd changed clothes as well, opting for a slightly roomier pair of jeans and a button down shirt which he left open at the top. Brennan remembered that he'd been dressed similarly when they danced in Aurora and how much she had wanted touch the skin he'd revealed.

Smiling at the knowledge that there was nothing to stop her now, she stepped closer to him and met his eyes. He smiled back and kissed her deeply, his hands resting on her hips and pulling her against his chest.

"The last time you were dressed like that, we danced together in a bar," she told him in a husky voice.

"I remember."

"I wanted to kiss you so badly. Here," she said, brushing her lips softly against his. "And here…" Brennan pressed a kiss to the base of his neck, drawing a long groan from his chest. He wrapped an arm around her lower back and moved the other upward to entwine his fingers into her curls. Booth had never seen her hair curly like that, and it was gorgeous.

He brought his lips down on hers again and kissed her gently until the oven timer sounded. She made a small noise of protest, but backed out of his arms with a rueful smile.

"Come on, we should eat."

"Mmmm, what's for dinner? It smells great. I meant to tell you that when I came in, but… I got distracted." He followed her to the kitchen, enjoying the rear view nearly as much as the front.

"Chicken parm," she told him a bit nervously. "I hope that's okay. I didn't have time to go to the store for anything more elaborate."

"It's perfect," he assured her.

He helped her get their food and drinks on her dining room table and pulled out a chair for her with an expression that dared her to argue. Brennan opened her mouth to do exactly that, but she stopped short when she saw the look on his face and realized he _wanted_ her to complain. So simply smiled and thanked him as she took her seat. His grin widened in response, though he knew she wouldn't tolerate his chivalry on a regular basis.

They laughed and flirted over their meal, touching each other frequently. She asked about his Christmas with Parker, and he told her that his son had made a special request for her presence during his next visit. Brennan smiled warmly at the thought. Although she didn't have a lot of experience with children, she liked Parker. He seemed to accept her awkwardness without judgment, which is more than she could say for many adults she knew.

"I really wish you'd come over and had Christmas with us, Bones."

"I know, Booth," she smiled gently at his persistence. "I just needed the time to really think about things. The past, the future...what I wanted. Last night I… I came to terms with the way I'd been living my life, and I realized that I didn't want to do things that way anymore."

"I'm not sure I follow," Booth answered uncertainly. She laughed a little.

"I don't blame you, I'm not very good at articulating things like that. Suffice it to say that I realized what I wanted, and I decided to stop letting my past prevent me from having it. Does that make sense?"

"I think so," he said hesitantly. "What you wanted was… me?" Booth asked with a grin.

"Yes," she answered with a small nod. They looked at each other tenderly for a moment before he spoke again.

"Well, I suppose I can get behind that, but… You're spending New Year's with _me_ , Dr. Brennan. No arguments, no barricading yourself in Limbo-"

"Modular Bone Storage-"

"-no claiming you don't celebrate New Year's Eve for some squinty reason or other. We could go out somewhere, or you could come over, and I'll cook for you, and we can watch a movie...or we can pretend to watch a movie and make out instead…" He winked at her impishly, and she laughed happily.

"That sounds perfectly reasonable."

"Which part?"

"All of it."

"Good," he said, leaning over to kiss her softly. "I'll clean up here if you want to get those files started," he offered.

"No, I'll do the dishes. But you can help," she added quickly before he could argue. He nodded his approval of the plan and watched her get up from the table. She unwittingly leaned over just enough to give him quite a show, and he sputtered a little.

"Um...Bones? I haven't seen that shirt before, have I?" She gave him her adorable crooked smile.

"No, I doubt it. I used to wear it to work-" his eyes widened in alarm, "-but I decided it was a bit too revealing for the workplace after…" She stopped, trying to choose her words carefully.

"After _what_ exactly?" He asked, concerned.

"When I realized that it made Zack uncomfortable."

"Uncomfortable? Wait, you don't mean…?"

"I noticed he was aroused on several occasions, yes." Booth gritted his teeth but didn't speak. "I didn't realize that I was the cause for it until I saw him staring as I leaned over an exam table." Her expression was slightly guilty. "I tried not to make him feel badly about it, but… you know how awful I am at avoiding awkward topics sometimes."

"Don't be too hard on yourself, Bones. I knew that kid had a thing for you the first time we worked together as partners. It's obvious. Well, to everyone except you I guess."

"A _thing?_ I don't know what that means."

"I mean he thinks you're hot, you know? He wishes the attraction was mutual." She looked unconvinced.

"That's ridiculous. Zack is… well, he's Zack. The idea of he and I-"

"Yeah, please don't finish that thought, Bones. I get why it doesn't make sense to you. But that doesn't mean it's not true. For him, anyway."

She let the subject drop as he cleared the table and brought the dishes to the sink.

"I'm a little glad I didn't see that shirt until now," he told her, enjoying the view from over her shoulder. She didn't miss the direction of his eyes and was now absolutely certain that it wasn't the first time he'd taken advantage of that particular benefit of his height. This was only the first time he'd allowed her to catch him.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because now I can act on the thoughts it puts in my head," he told her, giving her a sexy smile.

"Hmm. Have you had that problem often? Thoughts in your head you can't act on?"

"Every single day that I'm with you," he replied honestly in a low, husky voice. "And the ones in between too."

As she finished rinsing the last dish and dried her hands, she felt his strong arms wrap gently around her waist from behind and his lips brush against her neck. Brennan tilted her head to give him access and shivered when his mouth fastened itself lightly to the pulse point below her ear. She moaned softly and bit her bottom lip, instantly wet for him, and her breath came out in shaking gasps as she trembled.

Booth moved both hands slowly upward to cup her breasts, and she whimpered softly at his boldness. She could feel his arousal pressing into her and reached around behind her to place her hand firmly against his length. Her hips moved against him of their own volition, and he groaned loudly into her ear. The sound made Brennan suddenly hungry to taste him, to hear his noises as she took him into her mouth. Booth, however, had other ideas at that moment. With one hand, he gently tilted her face toward his and captured her lips with his own. The other hand slid deliciously down her torso, under the waistband of her pants, and stopped only when his fingers came to rest against her slick folds.

Finding her already as aroused as he was heightened the passion of his kisses, and Brennan was breathless in seconds. A new urgency colored their movements, and they began undressing one another rapidly. Brennan heard the buttons of her shirt bounce against the tile floor, and she let out another gasp when he turned her to face him before sinking to his knees in front of her. Her pants came off next, and he moaned with hunger as he took in the sight of her.

"You're so beautiful, baby," he told her, pressing a kiss to her stomach. "So beautiful…" Brennan tried to respond, but words were suddenly beyond her capacity as she felt him raise her left leg to place it on his shoulder. She was open and exposed to him then, and the heat flooding her core was unmistakable. Brennan couldn't stop watching him. She'd known what he intended to do from the moment he'd dropped to his knees, but the touch of his tongue still sent shockwaves through her body. She clutched the countertop behind her with a cry of pleasure and struggled not to collapse to the floor. He seemed to sense that remaining on her feet was becoming difficult, and he moved her gently sideways to an open space of counter. She laid back against it gratefully and watched him wedge a shoulder beneath each knee. He pushed her carefully upward until her hips rested on the countertop, and all the while, his lips remained fastened to her. His tongue thrust deep in a rhythm that drove her to madness, and when her entire body began to shake with her desire, Booth knew she was close.

He moved his lips to her clit then, sucking relentlessly until she shattered against his mouth. He watched her face as she came, and her cries were softer this time: desperate, breathless moans that echoed over the tiled floor. The aftershocks of her orgasm were still rippling through her when he quickly rid himself of his own pants and plunged deep inside of her. Now she was shouting.

"Booth! ...Oh my god…" Her hands reached out wildly for his shoulders and pulled him down against her. Booth slipped his own hands skillfully beneath her and picked her up from the countertop. Her legs locked instinctively around his waist, and their lips crashed against one another. She could taste herself on him, and it was nearly enough to send her over the edge again. He stood completely upright then and walked them carefully from the kitchen. He was still inside of her, but it was now her hips that controlled the pace and depth.

He had been headed toward the bedroom, but deliberate tightening of her inner muscles stole through his self-control. Booth pinned her against a wall in the hallway and thrust deep into her again. The pace quickened, and for a moment he thought he was being too rough with her, but she urged him onward with every gasp and moan of his name.

Brennan clawed his back like a wildcat, matching his movements urgently as she rocketed toward yet another spectacular release. He had called her beautiful, but as she looked into his eyes and felt him moving feverishly within her, she thought he was the most breathtaking sight she'd ever seen. As she neared her climax again, she couldn't hold the words back another second.

"I love you, Booth."

And she broke, feeling him reach his own release a half second later. Booth's arms clutched her so tightly it was almost uncomfortable, but in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to be as close to him as possible. To be his. His own body shook as he tried to collect his scattered wits. He had planned to make it into the bedroom eventually, but her words had undone him. He placed a shaking kiss to her forehead, her cheek, and finally her lips. Finding his voice at last, he whispered softly into her ear.

"I love you too, Bones. I love you so much."

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"You're very quiet all of the sudden. Are you okay?" Brennan asked curiously. They had been talking for nearly an hour, laying in her bed, and holding one another comfortably.

"Sorry, yeah. I'm fine. Just...thinking," he answered calmly. Booth's hand ran in smooth strokes up and down the bare skin of her back as she lay against him. Temperance Brennan lying naked in his arms was a sight he would never tire of seeing. He would never tire of looking at her, being with her, talking to her… He knew it as certainly as he knew the sun would rise in the east.

But at the moment she was looking at him with a curious expression, wanting to know what was on his mind. _Where to begin?_

"I love being with you," he began. "I'm the happiest I've been in a very long time, just laying here with you in my arms. Hearing your voice, feeling your skin… kissing your lips," he paused to sweep his lips gently across hers. "I'm afraid of waking up tomorrow and find out it was a dream. I'm so happy that it's hard to believe it's real," he admitted.

Brennan understood his predicament perfectly.

"I know, Booth. That thought has crossed my mind as well. But I think I know the solution."

"What might that be?" Booth asked, smiling sweetly at her.

"We wake up together. Just like this. Then we'll know it was real." She returned his smile and kissed him once more.

Several moments passed before she spoke again.

"Booth?"

"Hmmm?"

"Tell me something about yourself that I don't know yet." He looked surprised by her request, but he understood it immediately. He wanted to know everything about her, completely and fully. He was humbled that she wanted the same from him.

"Well… what would you like to know?" Booth asked with a tiny grin, unsure where to start.

"Anything, really... " Brennan tried to settle on one of the many things she wanted to know about him and decided to start with the easiest. "How about your socks?"

"My socks?"

"Yes. When we worked the Gemma Arrington case, I made a comment about free-thinkers and rebels with leadership qualities finding ways to declare their distinctiveness, and you said-"

"I'm a free-thinking rebel." He grinned widely, remembering. "Right after that, you asked if I was single." She huffed a small laugh.

"Yes, well… we both know how that one ended." Her focus drifted for a moment, remembering their first kiss. "But I've noticed that you wear rather...interesting socks sometimes. Is that because of what I said?"

"Maybe," he said coyly, adoring the hopeful expression on her face.

"And the boxers?" Brennan persisted. The Scooby Doo boxers she'd noticed the first night he stayed with her had been the tip of the iceberg. She had snuck peeks at him on several of the evenings he'd spent in her guest room, and she had certainly noticed the holiday print he wore while receiving his anti-fungal injection. The ones he had slipped out of most recently were adorned with smiley faces.

"What about my boxers?" Booth asked, pretending to be offended at the suggestion that his undergarments were in any way extraordinary. She saw through him easily.

"You know what I'm talking about," she told him, chuckling softly. "Is it more rebellion or did you wear things like that before you met me?

"Hmmm… Okay, well, I'll admit that the socks thing-yeah, that started because of you. And I wear the occasional obnoxious tie I guess."

"And the cartoon character underwear?" Brennan asked again, trying to hide a smile. Booth sighed.

"Well after, you know… that night," Booth looked at her meaningfully and didn't have to explain further. "I got the impression that you approved of those 'rebellions,' and… I was feeling pretty confident that you'd see my boxers eventually," he told her with a confident wink. She burst into laughter at his ego.

"You are so cocky," she laughed, shaking her head in amusement.

"Mmm, good word," he said softly, allowing his hand to drift significantly lower down her back. Booth fought the urge to really start her up again, and it took no small amount of willpower to resist. But he had a feeling that the subject of his off-color wardrobe choices wasn't what she really wanted to discuss.

"Is there anything else you'd like to know, or is it my turn yet?"

"Your turn?" Brennan asked, confused.

"To hear something I don't already know about you," he explained.

"Well I suppose one question would be fair," she said, flashing him a brilliant smile. "Make it a good one."

"Hmm," He pretended to ponder the options for a moment. He knew what he wanted to ask, and he knew that it would allow her to bring up her more serious questions. "Do you ever talk to your brother?"

Brennan looked taken aback by the serious direction the conversation had taken. It wasn't that she didn't want him to know about her family-what little there was that she could even tell him-but her brother was a sore subject for her.

"Um… No, not really. He calls once a year, on my birthday. But...I don't talk to him. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious. You never talk about him, so I figured there were still some hurt feelings. And rightly so, I just didn't know how things stood between you," he explained. Brennan nodded and gathered her nerve before asking her next question.

"Why don't you ever talk about your family? I mean, other than Parker and your grandfather," she asked hesitantly. He'd known what she would ask before she even opened her mouth, and he felt relieved that he didn't have to find a way to bring it up. She deserved to know about his screwed up past, but it wasn't the kind of thing you just come right out and say.

"My family is… complicated, I guess." Booth sighed, choosing his words carefully. "My dad drank. A lot. He was abusive in just about every imaginable way. My mom got the worst of it for a long time. But she went to the ER to get patched up one day and just… never came home."

Brennan was shocked. She had drawn a reasonable conclusion that the reason he never spoke about his family was due to some kind of emotional upheaval. But a story of abuse and abandonment was not at all what she expected. He seemed so… confident, strong, collected, happy. How did he manage all of that with such a shadow hanging over his past? And more to the point, why couldn't she manage that as well? She listened as he continued, feeling tears gather in her eyes.

"After my mom left, all of the abuse was directed at us. Well, me primarily. Jared is eight years younger, and…"

"And you protected him," she finished. _Of course he did,_ she thought. _That's who he is._

"Yeah," Booth took a breath. "I took most of his beatings." She flinched at the word, cringing at the mental image it presented, and struggled to contain a sob. "But a couple years after mom left, Pops figured out what was going on, and we went to live with him and my grandmother. They raised us after that, until Grams died. Then it was just Pops. I owe him a lot," he admitted softly.

Brennan didn't answer for a moment, know she would lose hold of her emotions. The last thing he needed right now was her blubbering, she thought. When she located her voice, it was tremulous.

"I'm sure he doesn't believe you owe him anything, Booth. I don't know much about family, but I would imagine that he simply did what he felt was right."

Booth nodded in reluctant acceptance of that assessment, but he couldn't resist checking her expression. She didn't look nervous about how messed up he was. Or afraid that he might be like his father. Her eyes were filled with nothing but love and compassion, and it humbled him. But he didn't miss the tears she was trying to hold back, and he squeezed her tighter to him, pressing a kiss to her hairline.

"I promise I'm nothing like my father, Bones. You don't ever need to worry-"

"Booth… I know that. You don't need to promise me anything. I know that you're nothing like him. You're a _good man_ ," she told him firmly. "Please don't ever doubt that."

He looked into her eyes silently for a few moments, amazed that a woman as brilliant, as kind, as _good_ as she was could know even half of the things she knew about him and still believe that he was a good person. He leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes almost reverently.

"You called yourself damaged," he reminded her gently. "And I hate that you would use that word to describe yourself, but… I'm damaged too. Maybe we both are. But somehow… we make each other whole."

She didn't respond for a moment, hating the sound of the word when he directed it at himself. _But that last part made sense_ , she thought. She had felt broken and hollow for too many years, and she knew instinctively that he had as well, even if he did a better job of hiding it. He made her feel whole again. Booth had swaggered into her life with his bold confidence, his charming smile, and his relentless need to take care of others. And somehow he had made her feel a little like the person she'd been before her parents had disappeared. The pain of not having a family had eased, because he wanted her to be a part of his.

She leaned into him to press her lips to his, and he returned the kiss instantly.

"Thank you, Booth." He opened his eyes and leaned away from her slightly to focus them.

"For what, Bones?"

"For trusting me with your past. For loving me. For making me whole… for everything."

"You don't have to thank me for any of it, Bones. You do all of those things for me, every day."

She smiled at him gently and remembered that she still had a lot of things to tell him about herself. But the thought of getting into all of it at that moment made her exhaustion seem like a heavy weight upon her.

"I know that there are still some things I haven't told you," she admitted drowsily. "I haven't forgotten, and I'm sure you haven't either. But can we talk about it another time? It's nothing that won't keep," she assured him.

He nodded immediately, returning her sleepy smile.

"Of course, there's no rush," he told her. "Let's get some sleep; you look exhausted. Can't imagine why." Even in the dark she could see his playful expression.

"Cocky."

"Absolutely."

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Brennan woke the next morning feeling more rested than she'd felt in years. Maybe ever. Curiously, she took stock before opening her eyes. They were laying much as they had been the morning after that first night they'd shared her bed. His arms were wrapped around her from behind, his mouth blew his breath gently over the skin of her neck, and even his slumber, his body wanted hers. Judging by his breathing pattern, he was still asleep, and Brennan lay motionless in his arms as her mind wandered.

She thought back, remembering his words during their first case.

" _I just feel like… this is going somewhere."_

He'd certainly been right about that, and she smiled to herself at the thought. Brennan found herself lamenting how much time they'd wasted, that they could have been together for over a year by now. But that thought brought her up short. She wasn't at all sure that a relationship would have lasted if they'd slept together that night, though they had both clearly wanted to. She hadn't known him then, not really. She hadn't yet seen what a remarkable person he was beneath that exterior of bravado and brooding magnetism. She probably would have found a way to sabotage things before they'd even had a chance.

Brennan was determined _not_ to do that now. As much as she had always believed that monogamy had no logical place in modern society, the thought of Booth with anyone else made her feel slightly ill. And the thought of another man touching her was just as unappealing. He had effectively ruined her for anyone else, she thought, slightly stunned. How exactly had she allowed that to happen? _When_ had it happened? When they'd made love? When he'd first silenced her with a kiss that had seemed to set every inch of her aflame? Or was it even before that… When he'd told her about his past as a sniper, or the torture he'd gone through as a prisoner of war? When he'd insisted on providing answers for Cleo Eller's family before doing anything else in the investigation? When he had vouched for her with Cullen? When he had threatened her ex at even the _implication_ that she'd been in danger?

Try as she might, she couldn't find the beginning of it all. But at some point, he had become the only man she wanted-or would ever want. She knew that, as a Catholic, Booth would want to get married eventually. She'd been carefully avoiding the topic, even in her own mind. And even now, she didn't need a legal document to prove their love for one another. She'd never had a reason to even consider marriage… until now. Brennan knew she wasn't ready to discuss it with him and hoped that he wouldn't bring it up for quite a while.

But one thought led to another, and she soon found herself considering their differences in opinion on religion as well. While she didn't agree with his beliefs, she still respected his right to have them. And it seemed that he respected her opinions as well, at least so far. Brennan wasn't particularly worried about that, however. Booth had never been anything _but_ respectful of her.

 _Would he want more children?_ Booth was a wonderful father who clearly had difficulty being away from his son so much of the time. Why _wouldn't_ he want more kids? Brennan had never entertained the idea of motherhood in any real way, and although she liked Parker very much, she wasn't at all confident that she could be a good mother. In the afterglow of their first lovemaking, he had panicked slightly at the realization that they'd forgotten about protection. She had interrupted his profuse apologies to reassure him that she was on the pill and had a clean bill of health. Relieved, he assured her that he was clean as well, and they hadn't spoken another word about it. Had the thought of pregnancy actually disturbed him or had he simply been more worried about _her_ reaction?

Brennan had no idea how she would feel about it, were it to actually happen. But for now, she resolved herself to put it out of her mind. She was on birth control, and that wouldn't change unless they made that decision together.

Movement of the arms that still held her drew her attention back to the here and now. Booth made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a moan, pulling her a little closer. Brennan enjoyed the feeling of him against her ass again and felt a little thrill that she could do something about it now.

She reached a hand slowly between their bodies and stroked him slowly. They'd fallen asleep naked, and her light touch was like electricity. Booth hissed inwardly as he became fully awake.

"Wow," he groaned into her neck. The sensation gave her goosebumps. "Best alarm clock ever."

"Mmmm, I concur." She turned toward her head toward him, meeting his lips with slow, aching tenderness. "I can think of only one better."

Booth looked incredulous.

"I seriously doubt that, Bones. Unless of course it's _me_ waking _you_ up this way."

"Fair point, but still not want I was thinking." She gave him a wicked grin and moved quickly, pushing him onto his back and straddling his thighs before he had blinked even once.

"Whoa…"

Brennan moved her body slowly down the length of his legs, feeling herself dampen in anticipation.

"I wanted to taste you yesterday, Booth. But you stopped me," she chided him with a smile.

Her voice was pure sex and sent a thrill of desire racing through his body. He grew impossibly harder and felt a little lightheaded.

"Only because I knew I'd never last if I felt your mouth on me at that moment," he assured her.

"Yes, well. No distracting me this time…" Brennan leaned down to lick the entire length of him along the underside, and he gasped at the touch. She paused only briefly to smile at him in satisfaction before taking him slowly and completely into her mouth.

Booth worried momentarily that he might lose consciousness at the exquisite feel of her lips and tongue, and he brought his hand to rest gently against her head. His touch remained light, but he couldn't stop the slight thrust of his hips into her eager mouth. It was all he could do not to push himself deeper into her mouth, and he fought to control the urge.

She could tell, and she lifted her head away from him long enough to whisper three little words.

"Don't hold back."

And then she took him back into her mouth, relaxing her throat to swallow him whole. Booth shouted at the sensation, and felt his resistance crumble. His hips kept pace with her movements, and within minutes he was careening over the edge. He gripped the sheets beneath him in tight fists so that he wouldn't be tempted to twist his fingers into her hair.

She was _incredible_ , he thought as she swallowed every last drop of his seed hungrily. _Amazing, magnificent, extraordinary…_ Again, Booth felt at a loss for a sufficient descriptor. He panted wildly as he came back down to earth and looked down to see the satisfied look on her face. The heat in her gaze told him that her actions had excited her nearly as much as they'd thrilled him, and he returned her smile with a rather mischievous one of his own.

"You're amazing," he told her fervently, reaching for her arms and pulling her up the length of his body.

"You're pretty incredible, yourself," she complimented. "I wish I'd been able to do that the first morning I woke up next to you."

Color flooded his cheeks at the memory. He had been embarrassed of his body's reaction, but apparently she'd been turned on by it.

"Hmmm. It was probably a good thing you didn't. We'd have never made it to work that day," he told her with certainty. She chuckled sexily.

"I suppose it's a good thing today is Sunday then."

"A very good thing." Booth rolled her onto her back, his eyes conveying a hint of a challenge. And he proceeded to show her just what _else_ he had in mind for their day off.

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They spent the day talking, laughing, and making love. It was the happiest and most relaxing day either of them could recall. Booth teased her a little about her lack of a television, insisting that they stay at his place that night so he could begin what would undoubtedly be a lengthy chore of cultural education. Brennan took his ribbing in good grace but countered that _she_ would be introducing him to some healthier foods.

They showered together again, but this time neither of them bothered with the 'saving water' excuse. Booth noted that Brennan seemed to greatly enjoy shower sex and was more than happy to oblige. _Every damn day_ if that's what she wanted, he thought happily.

As they gathered a few things she would need for the next day, Brennan asked when he would have Parker again. Booth shrugged a little but answered.

"I'm supposed to have him a couple weekends a month, but it doesn't always happen that way. Sometimes I have to work, or sometimes she makes plans for him that interfere. But I'm supposed to have him two weekends from now, since I just had him at Christmas."

"You had him less than a full day for Christmas this year," she pointed out.

"Yeah, I know…" Booth wasn't sure how best to explain the situation to her, but it turned out he didn't need to.

"I understand that you want to do what's best for Parker, so you've tried to keep things civil with Rebecca. But she's acknowledged you as his father. You deserve to see your son on a reasonable schedule," she said seriously. "Even if you didn't pay support, which I'm sure you do, you would still have a legal right to visitation."

"Of course I pay support, Bones. And… Pops told me the same thing when Parker was born. That I shouldn't just let Rebecca manipulate things like she does, that I should try to get custody. And I've certainly thought about it, but… she's a lawyer. She knows how to drag things out in court, and it wouldn't take long for me to run out of money." Brennan opened her mouth to speak, but he continued, "Not to mention that she has a tendency to forget Parker is in the room when she talks sometimes. I don't even want to think about the things she would say in front of him if I started a custody battle." Booth sighed in defeat, and Brennan's brow wrinkled in concern. She thought for a moment before speaking again.

" _If_ money weren't an issue," she began tentatively, "would you want to push for more visitation?"

Booth knew immediately where her logic had taken her, and his jaw tightened slightly.

"No, Bones. I know why you're asking me that, and I will _not_ take your money. If it ever comes down to it, I'd take out a loan or something." But even as he said the words, he knew that wasn't an option either. His credit was still a mess from his gambling days, and though he'd been working to clean it up, it was a slow process.

"It just seems like a logical solution to the issue-"

"Logical or not, Bones, I can't do that."

She stared at him, not really understanding his stubbornness. Brennan knew that he was a proud man, but this was important. She decided to let it go for the moment, not wanting to argue.

"Okay. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," he said, pulling her into his embrace. "It means a lot that you would offer to help. For me and for Parker. But if I ever go down that path, I need to be able to do it myself."

"I understand, Booth," she said, even if she didn't really. "Are you ready to go? We could stop to eat at that diner on the way."

Booth recognized that she was ready to change the subject, and he was grateful.

"Hell yeah. Their pie was awesome; you really should have tried some."

"I don't like my fruit cooked," she insisted. "But I'm glad you enjoyed it."

After dinner, they went to Booth's for the night. Brennan had packed an overnight bag with the things she would need for work the following day, and they settled down in front of the television to watch a movie. He'd selected Back to the Future, telling her it was a classic that he couldn't believe she'd never seen before.

She spent the first half of it explaining why the whole premise of the film was entirely impossible and the rest of it allowing her hands and lips to wander. By the time it was over, even Booth had no recollection of actually watching the movie, and he scooped her up playfully to carry her to bed.

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Booth watched her dress the next morning with a mildly tortured expression. How was he supposed to get through their workday knowing what was _under_ that outfit? He had taken her against the shower wall not fifteen minutes ago, but watching her slip into her lace undergarments and well-fitting clothing had him wanting her again.

Brennan glanced at him in the reflection of the full-length mirror and shook her head in amusement.

"You know, if you look at me like that at work, our secret will be out before lunch. Angela will spot it a mile away."

Booth groaned in frustration. He was starting to wonder if they could really keep this to themselves after all. When they'd agreed to that, he'd been on a post-coital high of sorts. Obviously not thinking clearly. He said as much out loud, and she turned to him uncertainly.

"I've been a bit nervous about it too. I'm a terrible liar, Booth. If Angela asks me about you, my face will give the whole thing away. She's been telling me to sleep with you for weeks."

"Do you think she could keep it to herself?" Booth asked hopefully. She shot him a look that questioned his sanity, and he laughed in spite of himself. "Well, I don't know then. Your only real option is to deny it. I mean, whether she believes you or not, if you don't confirm it, I don't think she'd run off and start rumors. Do you?"

"No. I think she would gossip, but only after she had confirmation from one of us," Brennan answered. " _Or_ from her own eyes. Which is why you can't be looking at me like you've seen me naked."

"But I _have_ seen you naked," he countered in his low, sexy voice. His brows waggled comically, and Brennan chuckled back.

"That's exactly my point."

His expression smoothed to a gentle smile. "Okay, well… if we're asked, we'll deny it. Say we're just partners, nothing more. Until we're ready to let people know."

"Partners and close friends," she suggested helpfully. "Since I'm pretty sure most partners don't spend as much time together as we do."

"Sounds good," he said, pulling her into his arms. They kissed deeply for several moments, and by the time his mouth lifted from hers, they were both short of breath.

"We really need to finish getting ready or we'll be late," she admonished. "That would be very difficult to explain." He nodded, accepting the wisdom of her words. Brennan watched as he shrugged into his shoulder holster, and her eyes became just as hungry as his had been. He huffed a laugh.

"You know, you don't get to look at _me_ like that either."

Her cheeks reddened immediately and shook her head to clear it. He was smirking at her, and the look in his eyes dared her to deny the effect he'd had on her.

"I find your shoulder holster to be a bit… distracting," she admitted vaguely.

"Distracting?" He swaggered toward her, rolling his shoulders around exaggeratedly. She laughed loudly at his antics and reached forward to curl her fingers beneath the leather straps on each side.

"Yes. Mostly because it makes me think about doing this." She pulled him toward her forcefully and seized his lips with her own. He was hard immediately, and she felt his arousal pressing against her. She smiled against his lips victoriously. _If she was going to be uncomfortable today, then it was damned well going to be mutual._

They broke apart after a few more moments, breathing heavily.

"Damn it," he groaned. "You did that on purpose."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Booth gave her a look that told her he wasn't fooled for an instant but let it go as she handed him a few things from his dresser. They were the objects he carried with him each day. His badge, a wallet, a butane lighter, and his gambling sobriety token. She eyed the last of these curiously, noting the length of time indicated, and she recalled the confession he'd made right before their first kiss.

As if he could read her mind, he smiled and said, "In case you're wondering, you had a lot to do with that."

Brennan met his eyes uncertainly. "I remember… I believe you said that you were 'dealing with it.'"

"And I did-I am," he answered with a nod. "The day I met you was the last time I gambled." Booth held his breath, wondering what she would make of that.

Brennan's mouth fell open slightly in surprise. _He'd stopped gambling...because of her?_ She was struck by the magnitude of it and couldn't seem to articulate her thoughts.

"I wanted to be a better man, Bones. You made me realize that. I wanted to be a better father, a better person. I'm still working on it, but-"

This time it was _she_ who silenced _him_. The heat of her kiss took his breath away, and they clung to each other for what seemed like an eternity. When at last they separated, she placed her hands lightly against his face so that she knew he was listening.

"You _are_ a good man, Booth. You're a good father, a good person, a good friend, a good partner. And I'm proud of you. I hope that doesn't come across as condescending, but it's the truth."

Her words ignited a glow that warmed him from deep inside. It seemed to radiate outward until he felt powerless to contain it, and the smile on his face was the most beautiful she'd ever seen.

"Thanks, Bones. It's not condescending. It makes me feel… whole." The last word came out in a whisper, and he tilted his head until their foreheads touched.

"I love you."

"I love you too," he answered. Booth looked at the clock and groaned.

If he drove with the lights on, they might _just_ make it on time.

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Booth pulled the SUV up to a curb within sight of the Jeffersonian parking structure entrance and put the vehicle in park. Brennan looked at him in confusion

"Booth, I'm going to be a little late as it is. Why'd you stop?"

"Security cameras, Bones. You didn't really think I wasn't going to kiss you goodbye, did you?" He looked at her with playful incredulity. She laughed her sultry laugh and leaned toward him.

"I suppose not." Their lips collided in a kiss that had them both tingling immediately, and they continued on for several minutes, punctuality be damned. Hands wandered, tongues explored, and when at last they recalled their surroundings and pulled away from one another, neither were sure if their actions were going to make their day apart easier or more difficult.

And in the complete immersion in their intimate little bubble, neither took note of the small red car that had stopped briefly alongside the SUV. They didn't see the curly-haired, bearded man driving the car, and they certainly missed the man's expression of shock as he watched them make out like a pair of teenagers.

Hodgins had recognized Booth's vehicle and been immediately curious as to why it was parked on the street rather than in a visitor lot or in the structure. When he pulled up next to it to check for an occupant, the sight of his colleague and her partner playing tonsil-hockey was the very last thing he'd expected to see. He briefly considered staying there to give them a thumbs up when they finally came up for air, but his quick intelligence reminded him that there have been must be a reason they'd stopped in that particular place. They didn't want to be seen.

He would bet his millions that when next he saw them both together in the lab, their behavior would be as professional as it had always been. Hodgins sped quickly away and through the parking garage entrance, hoping to beat Brennan into the lab. She and Booth were extremely lucky that Zack had taken a cab into work earlier that morning, since he typically caught a ride with Hodgins.

He considered Brennan his friend, and he was thrilled at the idea that she might have found some happiness after so much time alone. But he knew her well enough to know that if anything could ruin it for her, it would be her own tendency to freak out. And if anything could make her freak out, it was Angela.

He flashed his ID at security as he hurried through the building and made a beeline for Angela's office. She was standing near the windows with her eyes trained on the main glass doors.

"Hey, Ange, we gotta talk," Hodgins said a little breathlessly.

"Can we do it later? Brennan's late, and she's _never_ late."

"She was late a couple weeks ago," he pointed out, hoping to distract her.

"That was because of that asshole professor of hers. I'm worried about her; Christmas is a rough time of year for her, and we all just ran out of here after the lockdown was lifted. I didn't even think about what _she_ would do until after I'd left. I should've made her come with me; I feel like a terrible friend."

"Hey, you're _not_ a terrible friend. And the rest of us did the same thing, so if you're guilty, then we all are."

"Maybe, but I'm her best friend," Angela insisted. Hodgins knew there wasn't time to argue with her about it. Brennan would probably be walking in any moment.

"Okay then, you want to be a really _really_ good best friend?" Her forehead wrinkled and she gave him a questioning glance. "When she comes in, you need to leave her alone for a while."

"What? Why?"

"Because she's going to need some time and space today, and you're going to be the greatest best friend ever and let her have it."

"Why does she need alone time? Did something happen?" Angela was looking even more concerned now, and he rushed to reassure her.

"No, nothing bad. That's not what I meant. But you know how Brennan just needs to process things sometimes, right?" Angela nodded in reply. "Well, it's like that. I'm sure she'll talk to you when she's ready."

Angela was even more confused and worried now. How did Hodgins know something about Brennan that she didn't? The only thing she knew of that Brennan had been secretive about lately was…

Her eyes widened instantly. "You know something."

Hodgins caught the realization as it lit her face and shook his head emphatically.

"I'm not gonna tell you that. She will. But not today, okay? Just give her some time." Angela regarded him suspiciously, not appreciating the feeling of being out of the loop. But she knew that for Hodgins to get himself involved, it had to be important. He'd known Brennan for longer than she had, even if they weren't as close.

"Okay," she told him with a sigh of resignation. "But at some point, you _are_ going to tell me what you know."

"You got it," he said immediately, smiling broadly. Angela returned his grin, and he felt his breath catch in his throat for a moment. _She really is beautiful,_ he thought inwardly. He wondered if there was even half a chance that she'd ever see him as anything more than a friend and colleague, and he pursed his lips with a sigh, chiding himself for his wishful thinking.

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Brennan entered the lab moments later, alone and determinedly keeping her eyes forward as she passed the platform and the offices of her co-workers. If it were possible to _feel_ someone's gaze, Brennan would swear that she could feel Angela's eyes tracking her. Once she was secluded in her office, she risked a glance out the window and was relieved to see that her late entrance hadn't seemed to attract attention.

After about a half hour of answering emails and returning phone calls, she still hadn't been disturbed, and Brennan felt herself relaxing gradually.

Maybe this wouldn't be as difficult as they'd thought.

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 **Did it make you smile? Make you laugh? Make you hot? ;) Let me know!**


	12. Chapter 12

**It's bedtime at sleepover central, so here I am. Thank you so much for your kind words and encouragement. It really keeps me motivated to keep updating at this pace. :)**

 **Just a few notes on this one. The restaurant mentioned is a real place, but I took some creative license in describing the interior.**

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Chapter 12

By Thursday, Angela still had not approached her about anything unrelated to work, and Brennan was beginning to wonder if she'd been seriously misjudging her friend. She knew that it was completely impossible for Angela not to have seen a difference in her. Even Brennan could see it when she looked in the mirror. Her happiness seemed to glow all around her.

Regardless of the fact that there had been no case that week, she and Booth had eaten practically every meal together, carpooled every day, and stayed at one or the other's apartment each night. Today would be the first break in that routine.

It was New Year's Eve, and Brennan was leaving work early. There was no way she was going to get out of there without some kind of interrogation, she knew. She had told Goodman that she was simply taking some personal time, and he hadn't objected. He did, however give her a rather contemplative look that had made her feel very exposed. He knew something was different and seemed to approve of the change, but he didn't pressure her with questions.

She was, however, almost certain that Hodgins knew somehow. Brennan had caught him trying to repress his smiles several times that week, but each time she had asked asked if something was on his mind, he merely shook his head and smiled even wider. She had no idea how he could possibly know about their relationship, and yet it seemed he did.

Zack was as absorbed in their work as he had ever been and seemed to have noticed nothing. And Angela even seemed to be avoiding eye contact on the infrequent occasions that their Limbo cases did require them to interact. Brennan was confused, and she didn't know whether to be thankful for the reprieve or concerned about her friend's uncharacteristic behavior.

She had driven herself to work that morning so that she could run a few errands alone in the afternoon. Booth had told her to dress up for the evening but had insisted on keeping their destination a surprise. Brennan had a dress in mind for the occasion, a lacy black number that fit her like a second skin, but she wasn't sure it was quite right. She planned to spend a few hours looking for alternatives and figured she could use the black dress as a backup. She thought she might make a stop at Victoria's Secret while she was out as well.

As Brennan entertained herself by imagining Booth's reaction to some new lingerie, Angela watched smugly from the doorway of Brennan's office. She could really only speculate at this point that Brennan had finally gotten Booth into bed, but as much as she wanted to pester her friend with endless questions, she held back. Hodgins had been right. She needed to come around in her own time. Angela only hoped that her own self control could hold out.

"Hey, Bren," she said cheerfully, alerting her friend to her presence. The dreamy look Brennan had been wearing disappeared almost instantly.

"Hi," Brennan answered nervously.

"I figured I'd leave this last sketch with you for that Jane Doe case you started this morning. I'm taking off early today."

"Oh, alright. Why are you leaving early? Are you ill?" Brennan asked, thinking that illness might explain her friend's odd behavior.

"Nope, I have a date tonight. Wanted some extra time to prep."

"That's nice," she said with a hesitant smile. "Have fun."

"Yeah, you too," Angela told her with a secretive smile. "See you tomorrow."

"Bye, Ange."

Brennan was pleased that Angela would probably never even know that she was leaving early that day too, but she was even more vexed with her demeanor than before. Something was definitely going on.

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It didn't take long for Brennan to recall how much she despised shopping. The mall was crowded and noisy, and searching for one viable dress option among thousands was rather tedious. She was nearly ready to give up and simply go with her backup when her eyes settled upon a deep blue satin dress. The color appealed to her, and upon closer inspection she saw that it was strapless and close-fitting from top to bottom. The fabric was pleated and gathered to the left side where a delicately worked pin of silver and sapphires would rest near her seventh left rib.

She admired it in the fitting room mirror, wondering what Booth would think. The color did look very nice with her skin tone, and the material was snug without being uncomfortable. She could move easily and walk at her typical pace thanks to a long slit from the bottom. The dress fell right at her knees, and the seam opened to her mid-thigh. Unless she were moving, however, it was completely unnoticeable. The strapless cut was flattering, and the back of the dress was just high enough to allow for a strapless bra.

Before she could over-think the decision, she changed back into her original clothing and purchased the dress. She already had some shoes and jewelry in mind, so her next stop was lingerie. There was nothing which matched her dress exactly, so she opted for a black lace and satin strapless bra and a matching thong since the tight fit of the dress made her typical choice of underwear impossible.

Brennan was on her way toward the mall exit when it caught her eye through a store window. She stopped so suddenly that someone ran right into the back of her, and they exchanged apologies quickly. She entered the eclectic little boutique to get a closer look at what had drawn her interest and knew immediately that he had to have it. The belt buckle was fire engine red with the word 'Cocky' inscribed above a silhouette of a rooster. Even if he never wore it in public, she knew it would make him laugh.

She arrived home with her purchases in plenty of time to shower, dress and do her hair and makeup. Brennan decided to put her hair up for the evening in a slightly modified French twist which allowed a few tendrils of hair to curl gently against her face. She also wore a bit more makeup than usual. When she had finished, her eyes, cheekbones, and lips were emphasized tastefully, and she noticed that the color of her dress seemed to make her eyes appear lighter.

Brennan had just slipped into her heels when his knock sounded at the door. She knew without checking that it was him at the door, and she opened it quickly with a smile. His eyes widened appreciatively at her appearance, and though his mouth opened to speak, he didn't make a sound.

 _Holy hell_ , he thought, staggering a bit. Booth had spent a lot of time looking at Brennan. Watching her walk, work, laugh, eat, make love… But _this_. He'd never seen her like this. The dress she'd worn to the gala looked staunchly conservative by comparison. She stood leaning slightly against the open door, and her dress-that damned _dress_ -hugged her curves as though it had been painted on. The sight of her made his mouth dry and his pants snug. Booth felt he could spend the entire evening simply _looking_ at her and be completely entertained. He wouldn't have even minded skipping dinner altogether.

Brennan was struggling a bit for words herself. He had worn his gray suit, to which she had always been partial, though she was sure she'd never told him that. But he'd added a matching vest beneath the jacket, and the effect was extremely pleasing. His broad shoulders filled the jacket perfectly as always, but the vest drew the eye downward toward his hips. It fit closer to his skin than his usual dress shirts, and Brennan felt sure that if she focused long and hard enough, she could probably make out the contours of his rectus abdominis.

Both of them seemed to note the silence simultaneously, and their eyes met quickly in embarrassment. The flush of color that rose to her cheeks robbed him of the last bit of his sanity. He stepped forward and kissed her deeply, one hand lightly tilting her chin upward while the other slipped around her waist to rest at the small of her back. Her own hands spanned the breadth of his chest hungrily, and she moaned against his lips. The scent of him was intoxicating, and no sooner had he released her lips than she pressed them firmly to the pulse point in his throat. The touch sent a jolt of desire through his body, and he carefully grasped her upper arms to hold her away from him slightly.

"Okay, you can't be doing things like _that_ if we want to make our reservation," he scolded her with a grin.

"You started it," she sassed.

"Yeah, well… I don't know a guy in the world who could blame me. You look amazing. Beautiful, gorgeous, lovely, elegant… I can't even come up with a good enough word, Bones."

She smiled at him, pleased that she had apparently made wise choices in her wardrobe and appearance.

"I'm feeling a loss for words myself, actually. Did you know that I'm very partial to that suit?"

"I had an inkling," he answered with a hint of a swagger as they turned to leave.

"How?"

"Well the past few times I've worn it, you seemed to have some trouble stringing your sentences together," he teased. "Once I caught you actually staring at me like you were going to swallow me whole."

Brennan chuckled and shook her head, not even attempting to deny it. She knew for a fact that his description was completely accurate. She walked next to him down the hallway, her eyes never leaving his. And once the elevator doors had closed, she turned to stand in front of him, leaning into his chest and wrapping a slender arm around his neck. Her lips brushed against his ear as she whispered.

"Perhaps we can arrange that later."

Booth pressed his lips to her sweet-smelling neck and groaned out loud. It was all he could do in that moment not to reach for the button that would send the elevator straight back to her floor. But before he could do more than entertain the thought, the doors slid open, and she had turned to walk away. It was then that he noticed the slit in dress which afforded him a glimpse of the smooth skin of her thigh. The fact that he had memorized exactly what that skin felt like didn't help his arousal.

He almost felt as though he couldn't decide what to stare at. Her eyes were his usual choice, but tonight he was equally taken by the expanse of deliciously bare skin revealed by her strapless dress. A dress that hugged each amazing curve and revealed more of her breasts than he'd ever seen while she was clothed. And as he looked longingly at her hips, noticing the absence of a panty-line, he very nearly wanted to cry. Booth was determined to give her a perfect 'first date,' however, so he told himself to man up and get on with it. There would be plenty of time for lovemaking later. _Especially if we get our dessert to go,_ he thought wickedly.

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Brennan pestered him a bit about their destination, but he kept silent as they drove, a satisfied smile gracing his handsome features. He found it rather amusing that she couldn't stand not knowing something, and he resolved to surprise her more often. She may claim to hate surprises, but he was fairly certain that he could come up with a few she would enjoy.

When he pulled to a stop along the curb of 17th Street, she still wasn't entirely sure where they were headed. But she followed him willingly, feeling the comforting reassurance of his hand on her lower back.

Komi was a Mediterranean restaurant well known for its atmosphere as well as its food. From the outside, it was completely unassuming, but once they had stepped through its doors, they were struck by the intimacy of the dimly lit interior. They checked their coats and were led to their table, a semi-private circular booth that was nestled into an alcove near the small dance floor. A three-piece band played softly as two or three couples circled the floor.

Once they were settled, Booth took her hand in his and intertwined their fingers.

"Thank you for agreeing to come out with me tonight, Bones." The affection in his eyes warmed every inch of her, and she smiled at him happily.

"Why wouldn't I have agreed?"

"I don't know… This isn't exactly our typical scene, I guess. We eat more takeout than I did in college," he chuckled gently. "That's who we are, and I love that. But I wanted see you like _this_ tonight. Dressed to kill, slow-dancing… eyes just for me," he added, giving her his patented charm smile.

"Well that last part is true every day," she mused, deciding not to ask why he would find her attire homicidal. She assumed it was another of his figures of speech that made no sense. Brennan watched as his face seemed to glow upon hearing her words.

After they ordered their meals, he leaned toward her to kiss her temple and asked her to dance. She agreed eagerly, remembering the last time they'd danced at the Jeffersonian gala. This venue was certainly smaller, but she realized that dancing with him felt exactly the same as before. It was intimate and perfect. And they may as well have been the only ones in the room.

He spun her around the floor a few times, but their bodies never drifted more than a few inches apart. It was obvious to anyone who might make only the slightest glance in their direction; they were in love. He kissed her gently before whispering that their food had arrived, and she held his hand as they returned to their table.

The food was delicious, and although he had expected her to argue with him over the price, she kept surprisingly silent. Brennan understood that bickering over splitting the check would have been counterproductive, so she simply resolved to pay for their next few rounds of takeout to compensate.

As they ate, they talked about everything and nothing. He told her about some of his past cases that he'd worked before meeting her. She shared funny stories about the squints that had taken place before they were partners. Booth recalled hearing her admonish Zack and Hodgins about a plan to spike the eggnog at their Christmas party, and he asked what she'd meant by the 'Fourth of July Fiasco.'

She started to laugh heartily at the memory even before she started to explain. Zack and Hodgins had spiked the punch at the Jeffersonian's Independence Day gathering the previous year, and Goodman had been an unfortunate casualty. He'd been so affected that he'd told several dirty jokes over the PA system and had retaliated by revoking their experiment privileges for a month.

Booth laughed loudly at the story and made plans to ask Goodman if he'd heard any good jokes lately the next time they spoke.

"You know, the experiment thing isn't such a bad idea," Booth told her after his laughter had subsided.

"Experimentation is a great scientific learning tool, Booth," she argued immediately. "It's a necessary component of scientific inquiry."

"Maybe, but you know as well as I do that a lot of the time they're just blowing stuff up because they can."

She gazed at him contemplatively.

"Maybe," she admitted graciously. "I do get tired of the lockdowns and mandatory decontamination showers…"

Booth wasn't sure if she was serious but decided to let it go for the time being. If either of those guys ever ended up hurting _his_ Bones with one of their stupid experiments, they'd have him to answer to.

Brennan noticed that he was frowning into his wine glass and touched his hand softly. When their eyes met, she gave him an inquisitive quirk of her brow, but he shook his head dismissively and smiled fondly back at her.

"I was thinking maybe… we could take our dessert home," he suggested in low tones. She needed no further explanation as to what _else_ he'd been thinking.

"Those terms are acceptable."

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They returned to Booth's place, intending to watch the New Year's coverage and possibly a movie, but they never even got around to turning on the television. They were, however, most definitely kissing at the stroke of midnight. And most definitely doing a variety of other things as well.

Afterwards, they lay exhausted with their limbs intertwined, making plans for the upcoming weekend and the week to follow. She told him about Angela's odd behavior as well as Hodgins'. Booth wasn't quite sure what to make of it either, but he suggested she simply play along. They would tell everyone eventually, and maybe when they did there wouldn't be as much shock from everyone as they'd previously thought. Brennan agreed with his logic and hoped the current status quo would remain unchanged for now.

The next morning, he was dismayed to wake up alone in his bed. For half a heartbeat, he felt panicked that she was missing, but the sounds of the shower running quickly met his ears. They'd had the good sense to keep a few work outfits at each other's apartments, and he watched in lazy satisfaction as she dressed in front of him. Booth was off for New Year's Day, but Brennan insisted on going to work.

"I really have to finish the Jane Doe case I left unresolved yesterday. I left _early_ ; I really can't take off today too."

Booth appreciated her work ethic while they were trying to solve a case, but when it came down to getting more free time with his girlfriend, that particular character trait was downright inconvenient. He was preparing to whine about it a little when he realized what she'd said.

"Wait, you left early yesterday?" The disbelief in his voice was clear. He'd never known her to take off early for personal reasons.

"Yes, I went shopping for our date," she explained. "Oh! That reminds me… I bought something for you." She left the room briefly to retrieve her purse from the living room and returned with an eager grin.

"Bones, you didn't need to buy me anything," he insisted.

"I know. I wanted to," Brennan assured him. "It's nothing big, just something that made me think of you." As she spoke, she pulled the red belt buckle from her purse and handed it to him.

Booth immediately burst into laughter, just as she had predicted. Brennan thought it might just be the most comforting sound she'd ever heard.

"That's perfect, Bones. Oh my god, where did you find that?"

"A little store in the mall," she said, her laughter harmonizing with his. "It caught my eye through the window, and I knew you had to have it. You don't have to wear it in public or anything, Booth. I just knew it would make you laugh."

"No way, Bones, of course I'm wearing it! Are you kidding?"

"Are you sure? I mean, you're cocky enough without wearing an accessory to proclaim it."

"Maybe, but it's a conversation piece. I love it." He pulled her gently down onto the bed for a quick kiss. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she replied, glancing at the clock. "I really do have to go."

"Alright. You want to stay here again tonight? We can watch that movie I had planned for last night."

"Sure. I'll try to be back by...seven?"

"Six," he countered with hint of challenge in his eyes. She smiled and leaned down to kiss him again.

"Six-thirty."

"Six-fifteen."

Brennan shook her head with a laugh. "Six-fifteen, then. See you."

"See you."

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It wasn't quite noon when he texted her to ask about lunch. Brennan nearly declined the offer, but she was actually hungry, and the prospect of seeing him before that evening cheered her. She replied with a suggestion that he bring something over, and they could eat in her office. He showed up shortly after, carrying takeout bags and wearing his cocky belt buckle. She smiled with pleasure at the sight. Not every man would be able to pull it off, but Booth did so with ease.

As they enjoyed their meal, they were unaware of a keen pair of eyes watching them from across the lab. If they'd realized it, perhaps they would've sat a little farther from one another on her couch. Perhaps they'd have toned down the flirtatious laughter and less-than-subtle innuendo. Perhaps they wouldn't have gotten so lost in one another's eyes. And perhaps they'd have recalled that her office was full of windows.

Angela waited patiently for Booth to leave before approaching Brennan. She still wasn't absolutely sure they were sleeping together yet, and as she entered the room, the sexual energy seemed to still be hanging in the air. She didn't want to push her friend, but the suspense was killing her.

"Okay, Bren. I've tried to wait you out, to give you time to figure out whatever you need to figure out and come talk to me, but this is driving me crazy," she practically whined.

Brennan looked up at her with a startled expression and inwardly cursed her premature judgment of Angela's lack of interest in her personal life.

"What's driving you crazy, exactly?" Brennan asked in her best attempt at innocent confusion.

"Oh stop, you know exactly what I'm talking about," Angela pleaded. But Brennan remained silent and kept her face as blank as possible. "Come on, Bren… The constant touching? The flirting and laughing? The endless _eye sex_ , I mean, for crying out loud…"

"I don't know what that means," Brennan lied. Angela didn't seem to hear her.

"And my God, Bren-that _freshly fucked_ look you limped in with on Monday? _Late?_ "

Brennan's eyes widened at her vulgarity as well as the fact that she'd hit her target dead center. The worst of it was that fighting the urge to smile was like repressing a cough or a sneeze-it was going to come out, one way or another. And Brennan struggled to keep her grin in check until the muscles in her face were sore with the effort. Angela hadn't yet noticed and was still talking.

"Please, Brennan, _please_ give me something. Unless you're still friend-zoning him because then I might really have to kick your ass. That man is _hot_ for you…" She trailed off, finally noticing her best friend's expression. Angela's frustration dissolved into a look of sheer glee, and Brennan hurried to intercept her imminent shriek.

"Ange, I don't want to lie to you. Besides, I'm really bad at it. But I'm not quite ready to talk about it yet. Can you give me just a bit more time? I promise I _will_ share it with you, some of it anyway, but… I'm just not there yet. Okay?" Brennan pleaded with her.

Angela's expression melted. Whether she'd wanted to or not, Brennan had as good as admitted that she taken things to the next level with Booth. There had certainly been no question of whom Angela had been referring to, and Brennan didn't seem to need clarification.

"Of course, Bren. I'm sorry to be pushy. I'm just so happy for you! You've been smiling so much more the past few months, and the reason why is so obvious. Anyone could see it a mile away."

"Really?" Brennan asked, a bit disturbed.

"Well, yeah. I mean, maybe not _everyone_ , but anyone who knows you fairly well could see it, Sweetie." She watched as Brennan pondered her words, nodding vaguely.

"What did you mean when you said I was limping? I wasn't injured…" Brennan asked with a furrowed brow. Angela grinned wickedly in response.

"You were moving like you might be a little _saddle sore_ if you know what I mean." Angela chortled, but continued quickly, "And no, I don't mean from an actual saddle."

Brennan remembered the sensation of being slightly sore and stiff after the previous weekend. Their activities against the wall in particular had left her a bit wobbly. She blushed deeply at the memory of how those sensations must have translated to her gait, though she hadn't realized it at the time. Not sure what to say, she settled for unfiltered thought.

"I find that to be a fairly accurate metaphor."

Angela's laughter seemed to follow her the rest of the day.

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Brennan had picked up dinner on the way to Booth's place, and they ate as they watched Casablanca. They playfully quoted the film back and forth at one another, and Booth had been pleasantly surprised that she at least knew _this_ movie.

"I like old movies. Especially John Wayne movies," she confided later as they climbed into bed.

He chuckled lightly and held his arms open for her. She wasted no time in settling herself against him. They lay quietly for a few moments before he tilted his head to look at her.

"Tell me something I don't know about you," he said softly, reminding her of their conversation the week before. Booth had had ample down time that day to think about her, their future, and what he wanted. Even before they'd crossed the line into a romantic relationship, Booth had known that he wanted something permanent with her. But if they were going to get to that place, he also knew that there were things about her past and herself that he needed to know. Booth hoped that she trusted him enough with the information, even after what had gone down with Stires.

"Did you have a topic in mind?" Brennan asked, sensing the gravity of his mood.

"I want to know everything about you," he told her with a sweet smile. "But we can take it one story at a time. I know there's probably a lot I don't know yet."

She nodded, considering whether or not this was an acceptable moment to talk about her past. She supposed there would never really be a _good_ time for discussions like that, but he deserved to know, nevertheless. There was a reason she'd called herself damaged. She pondered her words carefully before speaking.

"My childhood was pretty normal, I think. My mom was a bookkeeper, and my dad was a science teacher," she shrugged. "I was always somewhat...reserved. I mostly kept to myself, and I lived in my books." Her lips quirked a bit as she used one of the few metaphors she'd always comprehended perfectly. "There was nothing remarkable about us; we were just like any other family. But a few days before Christmas when I was fifteen, my parents left to do some last minute Christmas shopping... And they never came back."

Booth knew this part of the story, having read the minimal information to be found in her parents' missing persons file. But he kept silent and simply listened.

"Russ-my brother-was nineteen and didn't think he could handle being responsible for me. A few days before New Year's he moved out west to work, and that was the last I saw of him. He signed me over into the foster care system after telling me that it would be better for me. He didn't think he could take care of me. I heard the social worker talking to him before he left, telling him that I was better off in the system…" She trailed off briefly, remembering. "Anyway, I went into an emergency placement first. They weren't so bad. Usually the families who are open to taking kids on an emergency basis are fairly kind. But I was angry, and I refused to speak to anyone.

"I got moved around a lot, which isn't atypical for a teenager in the system. Most families prefer younger children or infants. I'd had a total of nine foster families by the time I aged out."

"Aged out?" Booth asked, confused. She knew what he was thinking. After the Charlie Sanders case, she had told him that a grandfather had gotten her out of the system. She explained, feeling guilty for the lie.

"Yeah… I'm sorry. When you brought up my experience in the system, I… I couldn't stand to see any more pity in your eyes. So I made up a grandfather who stepped in to take care of me, when the reality is that I've never known any of my grandparents. Or any other extended family for that matter. I'm sorry," she said again.

"I get it, Bones," he assured her softly "There's nothing to apologize for." She nodded before continuing.

"My years in the system were… not pleasant," she said carefully. "There are a lot of ugly stories and memories that will only upset you. Not that I'm unwilling to share them," she insisted. "It's just that I don't know what purpose it would serve at this point."

Booth thought for a moment and said, "You used the key word, there, Bones. _Share_. I can share those burdens with you so that you don't have to carry them alone anymore. I do understand if you'd rather not talk about it; I'll accept that. But I want to share it with you. I don't want you to ever feel like you're alone with that pain anymore."

Tears had gathered in her eyes as she spoke, and he brushed his thumb lightly against her cheek to dispel them.

"I'll listen to whatever you want to say, Bones. And I'll be patient for the rest. We have all the time in the world." She met his gaze fully then, comprehending his hidden meaning. He wanted to be with her beyond the foreseeable future. He wanted forever. The thought gave her a tiny shudder, but she pushed back against the fear of loving him only to lose him. She couldn't conceive of 'forever,' but she would stay with him for as long as he would have her.

Brennan explained the inner workings of the system: about the rules that foster children are expected to follow, about the widespread corruption to be found when things go wrong, about the absolute solitude to which one must adapt. If you were a teenager in the system, whether you had good families or not, you were completely and irrevocably alone. No one wanted to adopt a child that old, she explained.

She told him how the transition to each new home came about, but tried not to elaborate too much on the details. Some families simply decided they wanted younger or 'normal' children living in their home. Some conceived biological children and couldn't handle the added burden of a foster child. And some had been abusive enough that her complaints and disappearances had gotten her removed. She had been locked in the trunk of a car for two days as punishment for breaking a dish. That had resulted in a hospital stay to treat dehydration and exposure, followed by a new foster home that was no better. She'd been struck on many occasions, deprived of food and water for days at a time, and molested on at least one occasion that she knew of.

Brennan snuck a glance at his face and was momentarily disturbed by the anger and disgust she saw there. For a brief moment, her inner foster child concluded that he was angry and disgusted with _her_ , but her adult mind corrected that misconception quickly. Booth would never blame her for those things; she knew that.

But she was concerned about him now and thought perhaps she shouldn't have told him anything. Looking at him now reminded her of the state he'd been in as a passenger while she drove. She could feel his heart racing against her skin, he was breathing heavily, and his hands were tight fists as his arms hugged her closer.

He finally spoke in a strangled sort of voice. "When you say 'one occasion _that you know of…_?'" She understood his half formed question.

"I know of at least one because I was conscious," she explained. "But in that particular home, my foster father was partial to hitting or slamming our heads into something. Losing consciousness wasn't a rare occurrence. And since I can't really say for sure what may have happened before I came to…"

"Did you report it?" Booth asked, his voice deadly.

"Of course," she tried to soothe him. "But the man's wife insisted that I was making sexual advances toward her husband and that she wanted me transferred out of her home. That kind of allegation… it means that you're labeled as promiscuous, and whether it's true or not, you are considered a 'behavior' case. It reduces the already limited number of people willing to foster a teenager, and the ones who are left are usually the ones simply in it for the money."

Booth's mind reeled. He'd known that what she would tell him would be difficult to hear, but this was much worse than he'd expected. Physical and sexual abuse? Neglect to the point of starvation, dehydration and exposure? How had this been allowed to happen to her? And who on earth could look at an intelligent, awkwardly beautiful teenage girl and call her a whore? He felt his own tears stinging his eyes and struggled to blink them away.

Her slender fingers moved to his face then, wiping the moisture away as he had done for her, and he closed his eyes to savor the contact. Booth looked at her then, still marveling that the neglected girl she had described had somehow become the woman now lying in his arms.

"Thank you for telling me, Temperance." She registered the use of her first name in surprise, knowing that he meant it as a means to guarantee her attention. "I'm so sorry those things happened to you. I wish like hell that I could have somehow been there to protect you then, but... " Booth trailed off, shaking his head remorsefully. "But I can protect you now. And I always will," he told her, pressing his lips to hers gently and resting his forehead against hers.

"Whether I actually need it or not?" Brennan asked with a sardonic smile.

"Damn straight."

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Brennan drifted to sleep relatively quickly, but his mind wouldn't allow him to rest for quite a while. The more he mulled over the information she'd entrusted to him, the more he felt he understood some things about her that had puzzled him a little in the past. He had always been a little baffled by her purely clinical way of talking about sex-when it didn't pertain to them, that is. Now it made a sick kind of sense that the nonconsensual nature of her first experience would influence her rational mind to conclude that sex was merely a means to 'satisfy biological urges.' Booth was relieved that she obviously didn't feel that way anymore. Their love had changed that.

Booth was plagued by nightmares that night. He was beating on the trunk of an old Chevy as she screamed for help from inside. He watched, restrained and powerless, as an unknown man beat her. The man's face shifted into that of his own father, and then once more into Peter's. He stood in front of a faceless doctor in a hospital waiting room; _I'm sorry, we did everything we could…_

Booth woke shouting her name, relieved to find her right next to him-safe and whole. Brennan had woken with a start and immediately moved to calm him. She adjusted their positions until she could pull his head to her chest, his ear resting right above her heart. The sound of it soothed him, reassured him that she was there, alive, unharmed. He shook quietly in her arms as his panic eased.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Booth opened his mouth to say no, but he realized how hypocritical that would be, considering the speech he'd given her about sharing their burdens with one another.

"I'm sorry I woke you," he said in a shaky voice that surprised him. "I keep seeing… you."

" _I_ scared you?" Brennan asked, confused.

"No… things were happening to you. And I couldn't help you or save you… I just had to watch, and then… some doctor told me you were _dead_ …" The last word came out in a pained whisper, and their arms tightened around one another at the same time. Her chest ached in compassion.

"I'm here, Booth. I'm okay, I'm safe. I'm right here with you," she assured him, stroking her fingers through his dark hair.

"Please don't ever leave, Bones," he begged, his words muffled against her skin. "Please don't go."

His words sent a wave of glowing warmth through her body, soothing the ache in her heart. She leaned her head down to press a kiss against his own as she whispered her reply.

"I promise."

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Brennan entered her office one morning several days later to find Booth sitting in her desk chair.

"It can't possibly be lunch time, yet Booth."

"Nope, take a look at this." He handed her a handful of documents and pictures. The top photo was an aerial shot of what appeared to be an airport which someone had inked over in red.

"A bunch of red circles?"

"Each circle shows where a body part was found," he told her in an oddly cheerful tone. Brennan had gushed all morning as they got ready for work that today she and the squints were starting the process of authenticating an Iron Age warrior. However, Booth had been handed a case within twenty minutes of walking to his office, and he knew she would be less than thrilled.

"What is this, an airport?"

"Los Angeles International. Local pathologist says the remains are in pretty bad shape."

"So they punted it to the FBI," she supplied.

"Airports, they fall under federal jurisdiction. Excellent use of the word 'punt,'" he commended her.

"I can't go to Los Angeles. I have an Iron Age warrior to authenticate," she reminded him.

"Yeah, Bones I know. I'm sorry, but… this is a case. I mean can you _imagine_ how bad the FBI forensic techs in LA could screw this up?" Booth knew he was playing dirty, but the bottom line was that she had to come. And he would rather she not be in a foul mood about it.

"But it's not just that, Booth. I also have three bodies that Homeland Security has asked me to identify-"

"Since when do you work for Homeland Security?" Booth asked in surprise.

"I'm… not allowed to say," she evaded.

This alarmed him a bit. He hadn't realized that other government agencies were in the habit of asking her for help.

"Does that happen a lot?"

"Not really," she answered "Until our partnership, most of the work I've done for the government was outside the country." Her tone was nonchalant and she shrugged her shoulders a little, turning her attention back to the images in her hand.

Her admission had not diminished his concern. He recalled the past references she had made to Rwanda and Iraq, not to mention the photos she had displayed in her apartment. It was clear that she was very well-traveled. Booth decided to let it drop for now, but he wondered exactly what else her country might have asked her to do. And the thought made him exceedingly uncomfortable.

"Come on, Bones. When we're not working, we can act like a real couple out there," he told her softly as he stepped a bit closer to her. "We can book connecting hotel rooms… not that we'll use them both." His voice low and husky, her mind instantly making the connection to the way he sounded during their lovemaking.

She swallowed past a suddenly dry mouth, but adapted a long-suffering tone of resignation.

"I suppose I can ask Dr. Goodman to step in on the Iron Age warrior, and the other remains will keep for a few days."

"That's what I'm talking about, Bones! Let's go pack, our plane leaves in a few hours."

Brennan allowed him to escort her from the lab, only slightly lamenting the change in her plans.

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Faced with the prospect of a few days away from the observant eyes of their co-workers, Brennan cheered considerably and particularly enjoyed the freedom of being affectionate on their flight. He held her hand as they walked through the airports, sneaking quick kisses more than once. She bickered with him playfully from beneath the arm he'd wrapped around her shoulders about his devious choice of rental cars. And as Booth watched her, he was struck once more at how happy she made him.

He did, however, sincerely hope that they'd been set up with a _female_ agent for their time in LA. Brennan was dressed in her typical fashion, but she looked different somehow. Perhaps it was the abundant sunshine or the warm winds of the Santa Anas stirring her hair against the nape of her neck. Perhaps it was simply the contented smile gracing her lips. But whatever the case, he wasn't sure how long he'd be able to tolerate a guy mentally undressing her through the whole investigation.

When they arrived at the crime scene, Booth was pleased to see that they had indeed been assigned a female liaison; Special Agent Trisha Finn. She was young and a bit too green in his opinion, but he hoped that she could learn something from him and his partner at the very least. He was quickly disappointed, however. Not ten minutes into the investigation, she seemed to have lost her focus on the task at hand.

"Dr. Brennan, as a screenwriter myself, I'd be happy to help you in any way I can with regard to your movie," Agent Finn offered.

"Excuse me?" Brennan said distractedly.

"Someone told me they're thinking of making your book into a movie."

Booth was surprised at this and immediately felt a little hurt that she hadn't said anything to him about it.

"Why didn't you say something, Bones?"

"Well, all I know is I'm supposed to meet some big movie producer while I'm here if I have time, which I probably won't. Does the pathologist need any further access to the remaining soft tissue?"

Booth gave her a warm smile that she didn't see, feeling stupid for his initial reaction. Leave it to Bones to have no clue what a big deal a potential movie would be. Of course she hadn't said anything. It simply hadn't occurred to her.

"Uh, no. He got everything out of it he could," Agent Finn answered. "So my own screenplay is about this FBI agent who finds herself on the trail of a former boyfriend…" Booth rolled his eyes but his expression shifted when he heard her voice her disgust at his girlfriend's actions. She was guilelessly pulling the skin from the skull in her hand.

"It's okay if you have to leave," Booth told the woman with maybe a tad too much hope in his voice. The young agent stalked away covering a groan with her hand.

"This is not good," Brennan told him, studying the skull closely.

"Yeah, 'good' certainly wouldn't have been my choice adjective."

"No, I mean the architecture of the skull has been radically altered. Surgically altered," she explained. "I'm not sure I'll be able to tell who this was."

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The LA field office had provided some private laboratory space for their investigation as well as a communication link to the Jeffersonian. After speaking with Zack and Angela about the limited information the body had given them thus far, Brennan removed a breast implant from the victim in hopes that the serial number would identify the young woman.

Brennan was disturbed and disgusted by the amount of plastic surgery the victim had gone through. It baffled her why anyone would go to such extremes to change themselves, and the entire practice seemed barbaric to her. Brennan, being Brennan, had no qualms about saying so.

They had traced the implant serial number to plastic surgeon who had reported it as stolen several weeks prior. Booth had sardonically referred to the man as 'Dr. Boobs,' and as they sat in the large atrium which served as a waiting area, Brennan expounded on the barbarism that was plastic surgery.

Between his attempts to shush his partner and his frustration with Agent Finn's lack of focus on the case, Booth's mood was taking a considerable hit. For one thing, he agreed with Brennan about the disturbing extent of their victim's surgical alterations. And for another, he had hoped to solve this case quickly and enjoy a little down time with his girl. But between a nearly impossible facial reconstruction and a dead end on the implants, it was looking like they may not even be able to ID the poor woman, much less catch her killer.

After irritably instructing Agent Finn to wait outside, Booth followed Brennan into the office of Dr. Kostov. The man answered their questions agreeably enough, directing them to the LAPD for information on an escort service that might be connected to their victim. Booth was about to thank him so they could leave when Kostov addressed Brennan.

"You have the most beautiful bone structure," he told told her a bit sycophantically. Brennan bristled at his attention.

"I can't take credit. It's genetic."

"How old are you?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Well," the insufferable man began, as he rose from his chair, "it's never too early to watch problem areas. The jaw, little pouches beneath the eyes. Do you mind?" The guy gestured as if to touch her face.

"You touch her, she'll break your arm," Booth advised. _And I'll break the rest of you,_ he thought acerbically. "She thinks what you do is-"

" _Barbaric,"_ Brennan asserted with a glare. Kostov looked in Booth's direction, and the agent spoke quickly.

"No, don't look at me. I like my face the way it is."

As they walked from the man's office and back toward the waiting area, Brennan matched her steps in time with his and leaned close enough to whisper.

"I like _all of you_ the way it is," she informed him. Her voice sent a thrill of desire through his body, and he inwardly cursed the fact that it was _way_ too early to get away with going back to their hotel yet.

"Behave yourself, Bones," he told her smoothly.

"Make me."

She shot him a challenging glance, and before he could open his mouth to reply-or kiss her senseless-they were back in the atrium where Agent Finn was waiting. Booth glanced at his watch with a groan and began counting the hours until he would have his lover all to himself.

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The hours did indeed pass slowly, and Brennan felt them dragging as well. By the time they were secluded in their adjoining rooms, she was more than eager to be done working for the night. She still had a few things to discuss with Angela regarding the reconstruction though, and she video conferenced with her from her hotel bed.

Booth watched her covertly from the doorway, admiring her almost childlike pose as she lay on her stomach with her feet crossed in the air. He also noted the definitely _un_ -childlike curves of her body, and he stood for several moments, simply admiring her. When he heard the tension in her voice however, he struggled to pay more attention to her conversation.

"What this young woman did to herself… it's as if she completely removed her own identity. Who hates herself so much that she not only changes her looks but her core architecture? If we don't know who she is, then how will we be able to catch the person who murdered her?"

"Is that your way of apologizing?" Booth hadn't realized who she was speaking to until that moment, and he wondered a bit guiltily what he had missed while he was fastidiously cataloguing his girlfriend's exquisite body.

"Yes, Angela."

"I accept. Love your guts, Sweetie."

Brennan didn't reply, and Angela noted that her best friend's attention had been caught by something out of sight. She watched Brennan's expression soften and was barely able to utter a quick 'Bye, Bren' before her friend closed the connection.

Booth smiled at her lovingly and came to lay on the bed beside her.

"Everything okay?"

"It is now," she told him as she curled gratefully against his side. She didn't miss his inquisitive look, however, and she continued, "This case is just depressing I suppose. I can't imagine what would make anyone want to do that to themselves."

"I agree," he said, placing a soft kiss at her temple. "It pissed me off when that joke of a doctor had the gall to suggest you should change yourself."

"I know. Your frustration was quite evident in your features," she told him with a tiny smile. "Though not as evident as it was as we were leaving..."

"That's because _someone_ seems to find it amusing to torment me," he returned with a look of mock irritation. "Do you have _any_ idea what you do to me, even without trying?"

"Oh, I was definitely trying to arouse you with my comment, Booth," she said pragmatically. He chuckled indulgently.

"Yeah, I know. But do you realize what you do to me even when you're _not_ trying to arouse me?" He began to press soft kisses along her jaw and neck as he continued. "How the scent of you near me makes my heart race? What the sound of your voice does to me? I swear, it's amazing how turned on I get just by listening to you speak. It doesn't even matter what words you're saying," he told her in hot whispered breaths against her skin. "'Comminuted fracture to the zygomatic…'" _Kiss_ "'Wear on the mandibular fossa…'" _Kiss_ "'Hairline fracture on the clavicular notch…'" _Kiss_

Brennan wasn't sure what was turning her on more-the words he was whispering or the fact that with each phrase, he placed open mouthed kisses to those particular bones. Her mind reeled, wondering when the hell he'd learned that much about the skeletal anatomy. And how had he managed to remove her tank top without her notice? But as his mouth drifted lower, worshiping the fevered skin of her breasts, Brennan lost her hold on conscious thought entirely.

Her hands found their way to his head, and her fingers traced patterns through his hair as he took a hardened nipple into his mouth, pulling gently and allowing his tongue to tease the sensitive flesh. Brennan arched off the bed suddenly in response, and Booth took the opportunity to snake an arm around her waist. His remaining hand played tantalizingly over her skin, finding her other breast and squeezing with just the amount of pressure he knew she liked.

The sounds coming from her mouth were devastating his desire to move slowly, as were the seductive movements of her hips. It still amazed him that this incredible, sexy, brilliant woman could want _him_ when she could so easily have anyone. He knew he was a good looking man, but he often felt that Bones was out of his league. He could only pray that she never realized it, because he knew that he would be lost without her.

Brennan felt as though every inch of her was yearning for his touch. She ached with want, and her hips moved involuntarily in ways that urged him onward. She'd had enough of moving slowly. She needed him _now_. Brennan flipped him skillfully onto his back and removed his clothes so quickly that it was done before he was even fully aware of her intentions. In another flash of movement, her pants had been tossed across the room, and she was completely naked, straddling his hips.

"Oh God, Bones," he moaned in surrender. "Please…"

He didn't have to ask twice. She sank down onto him and captured his lips in the same instant. Their tongues vied for dominance as he thrust forcefully into her from below, his hands grasping her hips. She met him stroke for stroke, their speed increasing quickly. Booth felt her approaching her breaking point and deftly slipped a hand between their bodies. Brennan felt his fingertips pressing against her clit and succumbed to her orgasm almost immediately.

Booth marveled over the delicious feeling of her walls spasming around him, and he didn't wait for them to subside before he flipped her to her back, burying himself even deeper and moving within her at a frenzied pace. Brennan's second climax shocked her, coming mere seconds after the end of the first. Her body clenched harder this time, and Booth couldn't help but follow her. They both cried out in their ecstasy, not caring in the slightest that there were most likely people in the neighboring room who had just gotten an earful.

They kissed with slow passion while their bodies separated and their heart rates returned to normal. Booth hugged her tightly to his chest as he settled down at her side, their lips still brushing against one another. When at last they stopped to open their eyes fully, Booth was transfixed by what he saw. Brennan was looking at him with so much love in her beautiful eyes that he felt staggered, unable to do more than return her gaze and hope that she could see the same love mirrored in his own eyes.

She did. Brennan stroked his cheek softly, trying to articulate her own tangled thoughts.

"Will it always be like this?" Brennan asked him, feeling bewitched by the emotion in his warm brown eyes.

"Like what, Bones?" Booth replied with a smile.

"So… intense. So fulfilling… so wonderful."

"Yes," he answered with another slow kiss. "In fact, every time we're together it seems to get even _more_ intense." _Kiss_ "And fulfilling." _Kiss_ "And wonderful…" She moaned against his lips, remembering his earlier words. She pulled back to look at him with a curious grin.

"When exactly did you learn so much about skeletal anatomy?"

Booth smiled broadly.

"Oh, you know… I work with this smokin' hot genius who really loves to talk about bones."

Brennan chuckled but persisted, "Is that all then? You just listened to me?"

"Well, yeah… I always try to listen to you, Bones. Even if the physical stuff is distracting me, I do _try_ to listen when you speak. But when we first started working together as partners, I realized that I needed to be able to understand what you were saying the first time so that you wouldn't have to repeat yourself for my benefit. You guys move fast and talk faster in that lab, Bones. I couldn't afford to be left behind. So I got myself reasonably acquainted with the scientific names for the bones and some of the chemical names Hodgins spouts off most often, plus the different kinds of fractures, how they're usually caused-"

Her lips crashed against his with renewed fervor. He was momentarily surprised, but kissed her back with equal passion until they were gasping for breath yet again.

"Wow," he said a bit hoarsely.

"I'm sorry, I just…" Brennan studied him with incredulous eyes. "No one has ever gone to that much trouble in an effort to understand me better. You have no idea what it means to me, Booth."

"Don't apologize. And it wasn't any trouble. In fact, it falls pretty far down on the list of things I would do for you." He kissed her gently again and moved their bodies upward a little to rest his head on a pillow, seeing the fatigue in her eyes. Booth switched off the bedside lamp, and the room was plunged into darkness.

They lay intertwined, holding each other impossibly close and allowing their hands to explore freely.

"I love you, Bones. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you."

Brennan squeezed him even more tightly to her and whispered, "I only need you to stay."

"I promise."

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 **If you're curious about my version of Brennan's backstory, there are explanations on my profile.**

 **Next chapter we'll solve the case and see Parker again. Hit that button and leave me some love!**


	13. Chapter 13

**As usual, a million thanks to my lovely reviewers. You guys are the best! And all you lurkers are pretty special too. ;)**

 **No smut in this one, but believe me I more than make up for it in the next chapter. Like you should make sure to read it when you're alone. Not kidding.**

 **You will notice I did some embellishing on Brennan's past work outside of the country, mostly because I wanted more details than the writers have given us. Hope it seems plausible to everyone. Enjoy!**

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Chapter 13

"You know, our thing used to be kissing each other on the cheek," Booth pointed out. "Now it's shower sex."

"Our _thing_?"

"Yeah, you know, a habit that was just ours."

"And our thing now is intercourse in the shower?" Brennan asked with a salacious grin.

"Well have you noticed that we hardly ever shower separately since that first time?"

"I have, actually. Are you complaining?"

"Hell no. Just making an observation. Switch," he told her, steadying her with his arms as they traded places beneath the stream of water. Brennan tilted her head back to rinse her hair and felt his fingers stroking through her tresses with the water. He seemed to have a thing about helping her wash her hair and back… and her front.

"What time is your meeting with that producer tomorrow?" Booth asked, allowing her to run her soapy hands over his chest.

"Eight."

"Alright. Hopefully by then we'll have some decent progress on this case."

"We're interviewing the owner of the escort business this morning, right?" Brennan verified.

"Yeah."

"Well, Angela worked up three possible reconstructions. Hopefully one of them will be recognized as our victim."

"We'll figure it out, Bones. We always do," he reassured her gently. She smiled up at him in leaned in for a kiss. It quickly became more than a simple peck on the lips, however, and Booth groaned.

"We really don't have time for another round, Baby."

"Don't call me Baby," she told him as sternly as she could manage while his hands were exploring every curve and contour.

"Whatever you say, Babe."

"Booth!"

He merely smiled at her affectionately and reached behind her to turn off the water, giving her rear a playful slap in the process.

"Come on, hot stuff, let's go catch a killer."

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"You know, if it weren't for our activities last night and this morning, I might be a little concerned over what you plan to do with that woman's business card," Brennan told him once they were back in the rental car.

Booth had felt more than a little uncomfortable at the madame's comment about a law enforcement discount and had been all too happy to leave. They'd made progress, however. Their victim seemed to be a former escort who went by the name of Rachel.

"You know I'd never do anything like that, Bones. Even if we weren't together," he answered seriously.

"Of course, Booth. I was only kidding." Brennan looked at him solicitously, hoping she hadn't unintentionally offended him.

"I know," he replied with a warm smile. "It's just depressing that this girl thought so little of herself, I guess."

"I concur. Anthropologically speaking, prostitution has a role in even the most primitive of societies. Humans have always used sex as currency in some way."

Booth shook his head, focusing on the road in front of them. He decided a change of subject was in order.

"So I have Parker next weekend. Do you still want to go to the museum?"

She smiled widely and nodded. "Certainly." But Brennan fell silent as another thought occurred to her. She and Booth had been sharing a bed, in one place or another, every night since that first night. Brennan knew that with any other man she would have been feeling an intense desire for solitude by now, but as always, Booth was different. She seemed to crave his company relentlessly, even after spending most of the day working together. The thought of sharing a bed when his son was in his care was a new concept, however. Would he want her there? Was it appropriate for her to be there even if he did?

"I can hear the wheels turning, Bones. What's on your mind?"

"What wheels? Do you mean the car?"

Booth snorted a bit. "No, I mean the metaphorical wheels in your head. It means that I can tell something is on your mind."

"Oh," she answered quietly. "I was just wondering how our… sleeping arrangements should be handled when Parker is with you."

Booth considered it briefly and replied, "I think that you should stay with us. Parker already adores you, and I'm sure he would love having you there." Brennan colored slightly and smiled at him.

"I'm very fond of him as well. But I was concerned that it might not be appropriate. Or it might cause trouble with Rebecca."

"No, it'll be fine. I know for a fact that Rebecca has men over from time to time when Parker is with her. She has no right to pass any kind of judgment. And it's appropriate because…" Booth took a breath, choosing his words carefully. "It's not home if you're not there. We may have only been sleeping next to one another for a couple weeks or so, but I can't imagine not falling asleep next to you. Or not waking up with you in my arms. Even the mental image of it feels wrong." Booth watched her face for signs of anxiety at his words but relaxed when she nodded with a soft smile instead. "Now, that said, we probably shouldn't have sex while he's with us until someone learns to control their volume." He gave her a suggestive wink.

"Well, since I'm perfectly capable of regulating the volume of my speech, you must be referring to yourself," she retorted smartly.

"Your speech, yes. Your _moans_ , however… Not so much."

They continued to bicker affectionately until they arrived back at the FBI lab. Their conversation had wound Booth up a bit, and as Brennan conferenced with Hodgins and Zack, he stood behind her, mindlessly enjoying the view. _The pants she'd chosen today fit her extremely well_ , Booth thought longingly. He shook himself mentally and turned his attention back to the conversation. But Booth noticed immediately that Hodgins seemed to be looking at him with a perceptive smirk.

Deciding to ignore him, Booth turned to grab Brennan's cell phone from the table, only half listening to the squints' conversation.

"Hey, Miss Bardu. Hi. Special Agent Booth. I've reconsidered your offer. I was wondering if I could have one of your ladies visit me today?"

Brennan whirled around in shock. "You're ordering a prostitute from my cell phone?"

"I was wondering if Rachel ever took part in any of those two on one specials," Booth told the woman. He met Brennan's eyes and gave her a nod of confidence that she did not find reassuring. Hodgins made some sort of comment from the screens behind her, but she was too focused on Booth to hear.

"That's great. Just send me whoever she worked with most." He gave her the name of their hotel with instructions to meet by the pool before disconnecting the call.

"You're ordering a hooker to the hotel?"

"You have much looser daily allowances than I do," he answered with a shrug. "I figure it's the most realistic way to talk to someone who knew the victim on a personal level, and this way we know that the girl will definitely show up for the interview."

Brennan considered his words for a moment and conceded to his logic.

"You'll come with me to talk to her?"

"Yes, but we can't be there too late. I have an early meeting with that producer."

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Brennan had observed the interview in silence, watching the young woman thoughtfully. She could see indications of plastic surgery in this woman's structure as well, and her mind attempted to determine what the girl _should_ have looked like. It was disconcerting.

The woman, Leslie, had given them a new lead: a boyfriend that they would track down the next day. After leaving the rooftop pool to head down to their room, they discussed the agenda for the next day.

"Where is your meeting with the producer?" Booth asked in a garbled manner due to the presence of his toothbrush in his mouth.

"One of the sound stages at Fox studios. They gave me directions." Brennan was brushing her teeth as well, and they seemed to have adapted an easy rhythm to their movements. They stood close together without feeling crowded or getting in one another's way.

"Who is it you're meeting? Anyone I'd recognize?"

"I don't know, some woman. I have the name written down…" She finished in the bathroom and crossed the hotel room to pull the information from her bag. "Peggy Marshall?"

"I think you mean _Penny_ Marshall," he corrected with a little smile.

"Oh. I should write that down."

"Probably. Do you have any idea who that is?" Booth asked, stripping down to his boxers and settling himself against the headboard. Brennan looked at him blankly. _No, she didn't have clue who the woman was and couldn't care less. Booth was nearly naked and waiting for her to come to bed with him._

Booth rolled his eyes a bit at her blank expression, not picking up on her distraction.

"Grab your laptop, we'll google her real quick," he suggested. Booth watched as she took the computer from her bag and brought it over to the bed. He wouldn't be able to go with her to this meeting, and he hated to think what someone might say about her pop culture naivete that could potentially hurt her feelings.

They scrolled through Ms. Marshall's list of accomplishments and were able to find one movie that Brennan had actually seen: Big. It had been one of Russ's favorites, she told him a little somberly. They discussed what she should answer to the most likely questions as they lay in bed.

"Thank you," she told him, kissing him sleepily.

"For what, Bones?"

"For helping me. I am rather uncomfortable speaking on subjects so far outside my field of study."

"You'll be fine," he assured her with another gentle kiss. "And I'll try to rescue you as soon as I'm done with _my_ meeting." She smiled and kissed him one more time before allowing her eyes to drift shut.

Booth held her close, smoothing her silky hair back from her forehead, and he leaned down to breathe her in one last time before sleep overtook him as well.

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"I don't want to be here more than an hour, Booth," Brennan told him in a near-whine. He had pulled the rental car up to the studio gate to show his credentials to the security guard. As they were waved through with directions to the particular stage they needed, Booth chuckled quietly at her petulance.

"I'm sure it won't be all that bad, Bones. But I'll be back to pick you up right here in an hour, okay? Call if you get done early." Booth felt a small wave of guilt as he watched her expression shift from grumpy to resigned. "I'm sorry, I wish I could stay with you, but their Deputy Director here wants some face time with me this morning to talk about the case."

"I know, Booth. And it's okay, I can handle this. I would just rather be working the case than wasting time with all of this." Brennan was still a bit overwhelmed by her sudden fame. She had been recognized in public a few times, and it was always extremely uncomfortable. Strangers spoke to her as if they knew her on a personal level, and Brennan couldn't understand their fascination with her. Within a month of its publication, her book had inspired so much fan mail that her publisher had hired someone just to catalogue and respond to it. She had seen some of it, in the early days, and Brennan was simply unable to comprehend what would compel a person to put certain things into writing and send it to a virtual stranger. Brennan was very glad that Booth would never have cause to read any of the more vulgar letters she'd received. She could imagine his reaction all too well.

"Call me right away if there's a lead?" Brennan asked before climbing out of the car.

"I promise," he replied immediately. He watched her disappear with a young woman he assumed must be Penny Marshall's assistant before he turned the car around to leave the studio.

Agent Finn caught up with him in the lobby of the LA field office, and Booth instantly felt a renewal of his distaste for the woman. Judging by her first words to him, she must have sensed it as well. Apparently she thought he was 'freezing her out.' Booth fought the urge to roll his eyes.

"Look, I don't have anything against you, Agent Finn. I just don't like the way you view the FBI."

"What do you mean?"

"This is a proud and noble job, but you're using it to get to something else. My advice-write your script, get an agent, hell, have a little plastic surgery. But quit using _my_ Federal Bureau of Investigation as a stepping stool into something that you think is better, because in my book, there is nothing better."

He walked away from her without giving her a chance to respond and headed down the hall for his meeting. It was fairly short, since they had been able to uncover very little so far, and Booth got the impression that the Deputy Director was a more than a little irked about it. After all, he and his partner had been flown in no doubt after some extremely high praise of their previous work. Perhaps someone had built up the man's expectations a little too much.

As he left the man's office, Agent Finn approached him again. But this time, she seemed to be all business. She had gotten an address and phone number for their victim's boyfriend and had spoken to the man's roommate. He had told her where they could find the boyfriend for the next few hours.

Remembering his promise, Booth called Brennan to let her know what was going on. Predictably, she insisted on coming with him, and he found her waiting anxiously at their agreed upon meeting place.

"How'd it go?"

"It was an interview with a reporter as well as Ms. Marshall," she answered distractedly. The interview had been awkward but thankfully brief, since the woman hadn't shown up on time to the interview and Brennan had spent most of the time simply waiting for her.

"An interview? Did they clear that with you first? Or your publisher?"

"Not me. I don't know about my publisher," she replied shortly. Booth recognized that she didn't want to talk about it and decided to shift the conversation to work-something that soothed her.

"Okay, well… Agent Finn got a location on the boyfriend. She's meeting us there."

Brennan stayed silent, feeling the residual discomfort from her stilted discussion with the producer. She wished she had Booth's talent for connecting with people. But no sooner had the thought crossed her mind than she felt his hand slipping into hers. Brennan looked over to see him smiling that gentle, affectionate smile that he only seemed to have for her, and she squeezed his hand back in response. He didn't seem to have a problem with her awkwardness, she noted happily, and the smile on her face grew just a bit wider.

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After two rather fruitless interviews-one with the boyfriend and a followup with Dr. Kostov-Booth was feeling a little fed up with the whole thing. He tossed a few theories at Brennan, but she of course refused to get on board with anything unsubstantiated by evidence.

Both of them were dismayed by the almost complete lack of identity and evidence they had for the victim at that point. Brennan pointed out that the victim herself had gone to great lengths to make herself invisible because she had thought she was ugly.

"Everybody in this city thinks they're ugly… and nobody is. I'm starting to get why you hate anonymous death so much," Booth said grimly. He had pulled the rental car to the curb of a street lined with palm trees, and he held her hand as she spoke again.

"We were born unique. Our experiences mold and change us. We become someone. All of us. And to have that taken away by murder, to be erased from existence against our will is just…"

"Evil?"

"Unacceptable. These bones you bring me… I give them a face. I say their names out loud. I return them to their loved ones, and you arrest the bad guy. I like that." Her voice wavered slightly with emotion as she spoke, and Booth watched her eyes darken.

"So do I," he agreed quietly. He put his arm around her and pulled her close, allowing her to sink gratefully into him for a few moments. "Maybe I could hold off Cullen for a day." She looked up at him a determined expression and thanked him with a kiss.

As he pulled away from the curb and back into traffic, Brennan's cell rang. It was Zack. And he had good news.

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Once the murder weapon had been identified and traced to a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, the case progressed at a much faster pace. Booth had a junior agent run a search through old records to look for reports of car crash survivors whose injuries and appearance matched that of their victim. The interrogation of the surgeon indicated that a mysterious piece of evidence-a fingernail with a fake diamond embedded-could be tied to Leslie, the call girl Booth had interviewed.

With another call to the escort service to request that she return to their hotel and a quick examination of the woman's fingernails, Booth confirmed her as the person who had killed their victim. Leslie had killed her out of jealousy over the changing tastes of a regular whom she had thought would marry her. After her arrest, Booth and Brennan spent one last night in their hotel room before catching an early flight home the next morning.

"So what do you say we pick up some dinner on the way to your place and try to make some headway on the paperwork?" Booth asked congenially, as they made their way through the terminal in DC.

"Okay. Or… we can stay at your place if you want. I have an extra outfit in my suitcase that I didn't end up needing," Brennan answered, intertwining their fingers.

"Well, we'll be at my place through the weekend because of Parker, so let's stay at yours tonight."

Brennan noticed that the idea of not staying together never came up, and she affectionately stroked the back of his hand with her thumb. She went over her mental list of tasks that needed to be completed in the next few days, plans with Parker notwithstanding. While waiting for their connecting flight in St. Louis, Brennan had gotten in touch with each of her colleagues who curated the Egyptian and Paleontological exhibits at the Jeffersonian. They were both more than willing to do her a favor. The Egyptologist, Dr. Green, had requested Brennan's assistance on several projects since she came to the Jeffersonian and was all too happy to be able to do something in return. Dr. Stewart, the paleontologist, was eager to grant a favor in the hopes that Brennan might finally accept his invitation to dinner. She evaded the suggestion over the phone and hoped that Booth wouldn't pick up on the man's suggestive demeanor while Parker was with them.

Booth's cell phone rang from inside his pocket as she was unlocking her door, and he juggled their bags a bit to answer it.

"Booth."

Brennan half-listened to his words, carrying their luggage to the bedroom and checking her answering machine for messages. There was one from her publicist, reminding her of a television interview she had agreed to which was scheduled for next Tuesday morning. Brennan groaned, wondering what the hell she'd been thinking to agree to it. Not that she hadn't put up a fight. When the network had finally offered to come to her office so that she wouldn't lose so much of her valuable time, she'd felt obligated to concede.

There were several messages containing nothing but silence, and while such a thing could happen under a variety of circumstances, she felt compelled to check the caller ID. The number matching the time of each empty message was the same. DC Central Detention Facility. For a few seconds, she considered simply erasing the data as well as the empty voice messages without telling Booth. But then she gave herself a mental shake for her silliness. Sure, it might make Booth angry and overprotective again, but the fact that Peter was spending his limited phone call allowance on her could be helpful information if the case went to trial.

They seemed to be of like minds, because Booth had finished his call and was gazing at her with a hesitant expression.

"That was the prosecutor. He wants to meet with us both on Monday morning to go over some details on Peter's case." Brennan nodded and handed him the cordless phone. He took it uncertainly.

"Scroll through the caller ID," she told him. As he did so, she pressed play on her answering machine. Booth matched the silent messages with each call, and his eyes darkened dangerously.

"Why is he calling me? I don't understand why he would waste his limited phone privileges on someone who obviously has no desire to speak to him. It doesn't make sense."

"I'm not sure, Bones. But I don't think he actually wanted to talk to you. He was with you for long enough to know that you're hardly ever home at the times he placed the calls. If he'd really wanted to speak with you, he'd have called your cell. This guy was stalking you, so we know he's both obsessed and angry. Maybe he just wanted to hear your voice on the machine, maybe he wanted to check if you were home or not… I don't know, but it might be something we can use in the case. Prove that he has an unhealthy fixation on you."

Brennan shivered involuntarily, and Booth stepped toward her instantly to wrap her into his warm embrace.

"I won't let him hurt you again, Bones. I swear it." His voice was strong and confident as he reassured her. And she gave him an easy smile in return.

"I'm not afraid, Booth. Just a little creeped up."

"I'm pretty sure you mean creeped _out_ ," he told her with a grin. "And yeah, it's certainly creepy. I'm just glad that he's safely in custody for at least another couple weeks. With any luck he'll get the maximum jail time, and we won't have to worry about him for a good year or so. But no matter how it goes, he won't get to you again. I'll keep you safe."

"I never expected otherwise," she said, tilting her head to press a long kiss to his lips.

"I love you, Bones," he told her when they'd separated.

"I love you too." She gave him one more kiss before changing the subject. "I was able to get in touch with my colleagues in the Egyptology and Paleontology departments. They're both willing to give Parker a guided tour on Saturday."

Booth's face lit up in approval. "That's awesome, Bones! Parker's going to be so excited. I can't wait to see his face. He talks about dinosaurs all the time."

"Yes, I noticed," she agreed with a light chuckle. If Parker wasn't embarrassing Booth with endless facts about the people in his family, he was talking about dinosaurs or his favorite animals at the zoo. Brennan had a sneaking suspicion that Parker would greatly enjoy a visit to Hodgins' office but wisely refrained from suggesting such a thing to Booth.

"I hope you didn't call in any major favors, Bones. I'm sure he would enjoy just seeing the exhibits."

"I know, but Dr. Green offered to let him see the newest mummification specimen they just received. It's not been made viewable to the public yet. And Dr. Stewart… well, I'm not as well versed in paleontology as I am in other areas of study. And I know how interested Parker is."

He must've heard the change in her voice at the mention of Dr. Stewart, and he quirked a brow at her curiously.

"Do you not like Dr. Stewart?"

"No, it's fine. He's very knowledgeable, even if his personality does leave room for improvement."

Booth seemed to accept her explanation and directed her attention to their dinner, which was growing cold as they conversed. Both were a little jet lagged, having spent the majority of their day on planes and napping occasionally. They stayed awake long into the night, making love until their bodies were pleasantly sore. When at last they were sated and spent, they curled their bodies around one another and settled down to sleep.

"Booth?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you think I'm weak?"

"What?" Booth asked in confusion. _Where had that come from?_ She opened her mouth to repeat the question, and Booth was even more bewildered to hear it a second time. "Bones… Why would you even ask me that? You're the strongest person I've ever known, no contest. What you do every day, how you've overcome such horrible experiences in your past… There's no one like you, baby. You're amazing. And the very last thing you are is weak."

Brennan processed his words for a moment, for once choosing not to admonish him for the infantile nickname. She could read the sincerity in his words, but she felt that his actions told a different story.

"Then why are you so needlessly overprotective sometimes? I mean, I understand that you're an alpha male who feels compelled to protect what he values, but you know that I am quite capable of keeping myself safe under normal circumstances."

"I do know that," he agreed with a tiny smile. "Trust me, watching you kick some guy's ass is hot. And very fulfilling, since I usually want to do it too." She huffed a laugh as he continued, "But the fact that you can defend yourself doesn't mean I'll ever be less protective of you, Bones. Maybe it's not logical or rational, but…" Booth paused, searching for a way to clarify it for her.

"Okay, let me ask you this," he began speculatively. "What's the real reason you want a gun so badly?"

Brennan looked at him in surprise at the direction he'd taken the conversation.

"Self-defense."

"No," he disagreed with a smirk. "You can defend yourself perfectly well without a gun. What's the real reason?" Booth repeated. Brennan gazed back at him, knowing the answer but wondering how he seemed to know it too.

"To protect my partner," she replied quietly. Booth looked immediately satisfied with her answer.

"I thought so."

"I want to be able to have your back like you have mine. It's not fair to you otherwise. And I'm a good shot, there's no logical reason I shouldn't carry a weapon in a dangerous situation."

"I may agree with that to a point, which is why I've given you my extra gun before. But ultimately, the decision comes from my boss."

"Who hates me," she supplied.

"He doesn't hate you, baby. I think he just doesn't know what to make of you. You're an unknown quantity, and that makes him nervous. It's not personal."

"Fine, but… why did you ask me about my reasons?"

"Because I share them-I want to protect you, even though I know you can protect yourself most of the time. I worry all the time that something might go wrong, either in the field or in our regular lives, and I don't ever want to look back and feel like I could've helped you if I'd been there. I don't want to have any regrets when it comes to you, and the most important part of that wish is about your safety. I know how competent and self-sufficient you are, Bones. But you're not alone anymore. And part of being together is looking out for one another."

Brennan was silent for a moment before giving him a slow smile. They did look out for one another. It was one of the best things about their partnership. And maybe about their relationship too.

"I love you, Booth. More than I ever thought I was capable."

"I love you too. And I'll never stop taking care of you. So you may as well let me," he told her with a playful smile.

"Sounds reasonable."

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Brennan was determined to work as late as possible the following day, feeling definitely overwhelmed with the number of tasks which had compiled in her absence. She had come in early, sneaking out of bed and leaving a note for Booth before driving herself to work, and she had flat out refused to break for lunch. Not that her refusal had stopped a certain Special Agent from showing up with takeout. She conceded to a fifteen minute break, practically inhaling her food before rushing back to the Bone Room.

It was now nearly six, and her phone had been alerting her to incoming text messages for the past hour. As yet another _ding_ sounded, she finally stripped her latex gloves from her hands and picked up the phone. There were five messages, all from Booth, and each one growing increasingly more demanding.

The most recent of them read: _If you haven't left by 6:15, I'll be there to toss you over my shoulder and carry you out._

Brennan wondered momentarily if he was serious but decided to err on the side of caution. She quickly put away the remains she'd been analyzing and headed to her office to grab her things. She could only imagine what kind of gossip would be going around if Booth followed through on his threat. So she texted back quickly that she was leaving. It was 6:05.

She had barely stepped inside the doorway to Booth's apartment when a small, blonde-haired boy collided roughly with her legs. He had wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tight enough to impede her movements. Laughing, she looked down at warm brown eyes.

"Well, good evening, Parker."

"Hi Dr. Bones! Daddy said you'd be here, even if we had to come get you and drag you home with us!"

"Oh did he?" Brennan asked with a smile in Booth's direction.

Booth watched his son and girlfriend, feeling an amazing sense of peace. He had all he would ever need, right there in that room.

He approached her looking a bit sheepish. "I probably wouldn't have thrown you over my shoulder," he admitted generously. "A bridal carry would've been far more comfortable for you."

Booth laughed openly as Brennan slapped his arm with more force than necessary, and he winced in mock surrender. They ate dinner together, allowed Parker to help with the dishes-which resulted in a bigger mess than there had been to begin with-and settled down on the couch to watch a movie.

Brennan sat on the opposite end from Booth, assuming that Parker would want to climb up next to his father. So she was surprised when he crawled into her lap instead. She was flustered for a moment, not having been around children enough to even know where to put her hands. But Booth saw her uncertainty and quickly pulled them _both_ toward him on the couch. In the end, Brennan sat reclining against his chest while Parker laid his head against hers, and Booth spent more time watching them than whatever film Parker had chosen for them.

The little boy fell asleep before the movie had ended, and Booth carefully moved him to his bed. By the time he emerged from Parker's room, Brennan had locked up and begun to get ready for bed. He found her in his bathroom, having just brushed her teeth, and he grinned in satisfaction when she put her toothbrush into the holder next to his.

Booth had never realized how many tiny intimacies existed in a relationship. And they didn't even technically live together. _Yet_. He wouldn't push her on the issue and hadn't even brought it up. But he knew they would get there eventually. He didn't care which apartment they moved into or if they found a completely new place. What mattered was that they would be together.

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The sun had barely risen the following morning when Booth felt a very small body slither into bed next to him. He carefully removed his arms from around his girlfriend and turned to smile down at his son.

"I'm hungry, Daddy," he announced. Whispering wasn't Parker's forte, and Booth quickly pressed a gentle finger to the boy's lips, making ' _Shh_ ' face. He gestured toward the doorway then, indicating that they leave the room.

Brennan didn't stir as he climbed out of bed and led his son from the room.

"How about we make breakfast, buddy?"

"Yeah! What does Dr. Bones like?"

Booth smiled and didn't have the heart to tell him that 'Dr. Bones' usually refused to eat breakfast no matter how much he pestered her.

"I'm not sure. How about we make some pancakes? I know she likes fruit, and I think we might have some strawberries in the fridge. Why don't you go check for me?"

Parker skipped lightly to the refrigerator and found the strawberries as well as some blueberries. Booth started the pancakes, allowing his son to help mix the batter. By the time Brennan crept sleepily into the kitchen, Booth had made Parker's plate and sent him to the table.

"Hey, Bones. I was just about to come get you."

"Why didn't you wake me?" Brennan asked, stifling a yawn.

"Well, someone wanted to surprise Dr. Bones with breakfast," he answered sweetly, leaning toward her for a quick kiss. Quick or not, his son spotted it.

"Ew, Daddy!"

Booth chuckled in amusement and touched his lips to hers once more. "I'll remind you of that in ten or twelve years, kid."

Not wanting to disappoint Parker, Brennan put a few pancakes on her plate and a reasonable amount of fruit. She accepted the mug of coffee Booth handed her with a smile of thanks.

"So, what time are we meeting those people at the museum?" Booth asked once they had sat down across from his son.

"I told Dr. Green we would be there around one. Dr. Stewart is expecting us sometime around two. Kate said she should have enough to show him to fill an hour or so."

Booth nodded, assuming that Dr. Green's first name must be Kate, since she had referred to the other colleague as a man with a personality problem.

"That's good. We can have lunch on the way then." He knew his son would be much easier to manage if they filled his stomach beforehand.

"Yes, that's what I thought too," she agreed. "Perhaps we could go back to the diner."

"What's that?" Parker interjected.

"It's a new place we've been to a few times. You'll like it," Booth explained. He glanced back to Brennan, noticing that she had eaten a decent portion of her breakfast, and he smiled into his coffee mug. Apparently the way to get her to eat in the mornings was to tell her it would make his four-year-old happy.

"Why are you smiling, Daddy?"

"Just happy," he answered truthfully, smiling at his son and then his girlfriend. Her own face lit up at his words, and their gazes locked for several long moments.

Parker watched them curiously, a grin of his own spreading slowly. He'd never seen his father smile as much as he did when Dr. Bones was around.

"Is Dr. Bones your girlfriend?"

Booth looked quickly back at his son, feeling a little uncertain at the term. He'd called her that in his mind many times, but not really out loud. Brennan didn't say anything though, and he assumed that she was allowing him to decide what to tell the boy.

"Yup," he answered cheerfully. "Is that okay with you?"

"Yeah!" Parker said eagerly, turning his attention to Brennan. "Does that mean you'll be here all the time when I come over?" Brennan was flattered by the hope in his little voice.

"Probably not _all_ the time, but I'll be here a lot. Is that okay?"

"Yeah. You're the smartest person I know! And you make Daddy smile all the time," the child said sensibly. Booth grinned happily at her.

"The kid's got a point."

They lazed around for a good part of the morning. Parker patiently explained the events on his favorite cartoons to Brennan, who thoughtfully refrained from telling him that inanimate objects couldn't really speak-nor could the protagonist's talking backpack physically hold the things that flew out of it. Booth squeezed her hand appreciatively as he sat next to her on the couch.

After getting showered and dressed for their afternoon, they stopped to eat lunch at the Royal Diner. They had a different waitress this time, but this one was no less charmed by Booth's gleaming smile. She was also immediately smitten with Parker, bringing him an extra glass of chocolate milk before Booth had the opportunity to decline it. He only hoped that his son wouldn't be too hyped up on sugar to behave himself at the museum.

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Parker's eager brown eyes seemed to dart in every direction rapidly, as though he was determined to see everything at once. Dr. Green had children of her own and didn't seem to be phased in the slightest at the boy's endless questions. Booth hadn't been sure of his son's reaction to the mummies, but he should have known better. They were gross, and therefore they were cool.

Brennan was happy to see Parker enjoying himself, and she answered as many of his questions as Dr. Green. When their hour was up, the little boy waved a merry goodbye at the Egyptologist, and they made their way to the paleontology department.

Dr. Stewart was waiting to greet them, bouncing on the balls of his feet expectantly. He hoped that Brennan would appreciate this favor enough to finally agree to a date. He'd asked her out many times, but she had repeatedly turned him down with excuses about being too busy with her work. Their two departments didn't intermingle as often as he would have liked, so he'd had to be creative in finding ways to talk to her to begin with.

At the last gala, he'd hoped to have a few dances with her, maybe offer to drive her home and kiss her goodnight. But she'd had a man with her who had scarcely left her side all evening. He wasn't sure who the guy was, but he had certainly made it clear to anyone even looking at Brennan that she was off limits.

As the trio rounded the corner into his line of sight, he groaned in mild frustration. The 'partner' to whom she had referred when requesting this favor was the same overbearing man who had glared at him at the gala. But he wasn't one to be deterred easily, and he decided he would simply pretend that her partner wasn't there. He would entertain the child and turn on the charm for his colleague. Besides, he couldn't imagine a genius like Dr. Brennan going for anyone less intelligent than herself.

He greeted them pleasantly, and Brennan made introductions, referring to Booth as her 'FBI partner.' Dr. Stewart glanced at him only briefly before turning his attention back to Brennan.

"It's wonderful to see you again, Temperance. It really is a shame that our work doesn't allow our paths to cross more often," he said, flashing a brilliant smile at her. Brennan stiffened slightly at his casual use of her first name, and since Booth had his hand in its usual place on her back, he noticed.

The paleontologist looked familiar to Booth, though he didn't immediately place him. He did, however, notice that the guy was flat out ignoring him and making frequent glances at his girlfriend's breasts. The man's attention moved to Parker at that moment, and only Brennan noticed the tension in Booth's body. She smiled up at him in understanding. _This must have been what she meant by an unfortunate personality_ , he thought grimly.

Dr. Stewart was also happy to answer Parker's endless questions, but his eyes repeatedly flickered back to Brennan. He couldn't help but notice that her partner's hand was always touching her back, as if in a subtle display of ownership. What surprised him was that Brennan didn't seem to mind, if she'd even noticed at all.

By the time Parker had run out of questions, Booth was feeling seriously pissed off and rather offended on Brennan's behalf. The man had spent plenty of time looking at her-but almost never at her eyes. It made his blood boil, but no matter how many dirty looks Booth threw at him, the insufferable man seemed to be completely unaware.

"Temperance, could I have a word before you go?" Dr. Stewart asked suggestively, gesturing to indicate his desire for their conversation to be private.

"Yes, but whatever you want to say can be said right here," she answered coolly. As much as she had tried to focus on Parker and Booth, she hadn't failed to notice Dr. Stewart's behavior throughout the afternoon. And she knew Booth hadn't either. The odious man stepped closer to her as he spoke again.

"Well, I had hoped that perhaps you would allow me to escort you to dinner this evening. There's a wonderful Italian place that I'm sure you'd enjoy. I'd love the chance to catch up; it's been quite a while since we had a good chat."

Booth gritted his teeth at the man's nerve.

"Thank you for the invitation, but I'm not available tonight."

"Or any other night," Booth added crossly. Dr. Stewart looked at him then and was slightly unnerved by the ire in the agent's expression. Brennan nodded in agreement with Booth.

"Thank you for making time for Parker. If there are any _professional_ courtesies I can extend to you in return, please let me know."

Before the man could reply or argue, Brennan turned to leave, leading Booth and his son toward the exit.

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Booth's mood improved considerably once they had returned to his apartment. He set Parker up with a movie and allowed Brennan to pull him down the hallway for an all-too-brief makeout session against the back of his bedroom door. After a few minutes of frenzied kissing and wandering hands, they straightened their clothing to return to the living room.

"I really wanted to hit that guy," Booth told her before she opened the door. The smile she gave him was slightly devilish.

"I know. I would have enjoyed it."

"Watching me hit him or doing it yourself?" Booth asked with a snort.

"Both. Either," she replied. "He certainly had a lot of nerve, especially considering that he had to have recognized you from the gala. And from Angela told me, our affinity for each other was quite obvious that evening."

" _That's_ where I knew him from! I knew he looked familiar, but I couldn't place him. Of course, he was one of the dozens of guys ogling you. I should have remembered."

"Oh stop, there weren't dozens. You're quite prone to exaggeration."

"Not in this case, Bones. You're just oblivious."

Parker was exactly where they'd left him, sprawled on the floor and absorbed in _Finding Nemo_. Brennan settled into Booth's side, reclining together on the couch. His arm was wrapped securely around her torso, and she sighed in contentment.

After dinner, Booth bathed Parker and put him to bed, returning to the bedroom to find Brennan laying out clothing for the following day.

"I need to go to the lab tomorrow," she told him. "I still have two of the three sets of remains left to identify for Homeland Security, and this week already looks like it will be hectic even if we don't have a case."

"Tomorrow's Sunday, Bones. It's okay to take a weekend, you know." He wrapped his arms around her waist from behind her and buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair.

"I know, and I do sometimes," she insisted. "But between the meeting with the prosecutor on Monday and an interview about my book on Tuesday, not to mention the fact that I've already delayed things because of our case in LA…"

"Okay, okay," Booth conceded with a kiss to the tip of her nose. "I get it. I just wish you didn't work yourself so hard."

"I enjoy my work, Booth. It doesn't feel like a hardship."

"I know." They climbed into bed then, settling into their usual positions within the circle of one another's arms. "Bones… I know you said before that you couldn't really talk about the things you do for other agencies," he said hesitantly. "And believe me, I understand that requirement. But can you give me a general idea of what kind of work you do for them?"

Brennan contemplated his question for a moment, trying to decide what was safe to tell him and what was most definitely classified.

"Well… your sniper missions were classified, right?"

"Yeah, some of them still are." Booth understood that she was trying to guess at his security clearance without asking directly. "Higher than Secret status, if that helps."

Brennan's expression cleared immediately, understanding that his clearance was most likely the same level as hers. However, she still planned to filter things quite a bit. There was no reason to make him anxious over things that had already happened, and she didn't want to see him hurting again as he had been after they spoke of her childhood.

"Yes, that does help. I can tell you where I've been, but not when. And I can give you a general idea of the work I've been asked to do." Booth nodded to assure her that he understood the reason for her discretion. "I've been requested to consult for nearly every branch of the military, Homeland Security, the CIA, and of course the FBI. Sometimes I'm merely asked to allow operatives to assume undercover identities among the researchers on digs, and on those occasions I do little more than keep their true identities to myself. I have been asked to identify remains after bombings or drone strikes, usually so that the government can be sure they got who they were aiming for. That can mean analyzing all of the remains found from each site to look for particular people, or it can mean simply confirming or disproving the identities of a smaller number of remains. Usually when I'm asked to confirm ID on an American, they can be shipped to me at the Jeffersonian. But when it involves military or covert operations, I'm asked to make the ID on site. And...other times, I'm asked to confirm the identification of...other types of people. Living people. Because bad people will sometimes go to great lengths to disguise themselves."

She paused, gaging his reaction. He was very still, and she could tell that he was working to control his response. He was successful enough that she wasn't sure exactly what he was thinking at that moment, so she continued cautiously.

"I've done work in Cuba, Guatemala, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan." She felt his muscles tense beneath her fingers at the mention of El Salvador, and he spoke with quiet rage.

"What happened to you in El Salvador was because of _our government_?"

"Not really. It was a legitimate dig, and it happened as I said before. But there was an operative undercover with us that time. He'd left for his mission the day before I was taken from the dig site. I have no proof that one had anything to do with the other."

Brennan watched his face as he processed the information.

"What about Rwanda?" Booth asked, remembering the pain in her voice when she'd spoken of the things she'd seen there.

"That was humanitarian work. The countries I mentioned were only the places I'd gone that had anything to do with government requests, since that's what you asked me. I've been on anthropological trips to many other places, and most of those were fairly uneventful."

"Were you provided with additional security? When you were helping in whatever way?"

 _Not really_ , Brennan thought, but she phrased her reply differently, "I was given as much as was possible without jeopardizing our position or cover."

But Booth knew what that meant. One guard, maybe two. He fumed silently and fought to temper his emotional response. _She's okay, it already happened and it's over._ He repeated the words in his mind until he felt slightly better, but he hadn't missed the fact that she had used present tense when explaining what she 'does' for the government, rather than what she 'did.'

"Bones. Do you have standing contracts with any other agencies?"

"No, just the FBI."

"Then there's no reason you can't turn down work you're asked to do in the future?"

Brennan hesitated. She probably should have seen that one coming, she thought with a sigh of resignation.

"No, they can only ask me. Not order me."

"Then will you please promise me that the next time you're asked to do something dangerous like that… that you'll say no?" Booth asked, his voice pleading. Brennan wavered, considering his request. He saw her hesitation and misinterpreted it. "I know I really have no right to ask you that, and I'm not trying to control you, Bones, it's nothing like that. I just can't stand the thought of you putting yourself in those situations again. Something could go wrong so easily, and I would go crazy if something happened to you."

"I understand, Booth. I didn't think you were being controlling or manipulative in your request. I only delayed my answer because I was considering how best to respond." She took a inhaled deeply before continuing. "I can turn down the requests to travel for the purpose of making IDs in hostile territories. But traveling for anthropological reasons is part of my job at the Jeffersonian. Or at least it was until we became partners. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the balance is expected to be now. I may not always have the authority to refuse sanctuary to an undercover operative, but I suppose I can promise that if I learn of that kind of thing before arriving at the location, I will cancel my own plans to be involved."

Booth eased slightly, nodding in acceptance and kissing her forehead tenderly. It would have to be enough for now. If she still needed to travel out of the country for the Jeffersonian, he would simply have to find a way to accompany her somehow. He knew that staying behind and not knowing that she was safe every day would drive him insane.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah, I mean… it's the most you can do, right? To stay out of harm's way."

"Yes. But Booth… you're not the only one who worries that something terrible will happen. If I'm going to promise to turn down jobs that are overly risky from now on, then I want you to do the same, whenever possible. And when you aren't able to refuse, I want you to employ the same amount of caution that you would want from me if the circumstances were reversed."

"I can do that, Bones," he agreed quickly. "The very last thing I want to do is leave you." Booth was silent for a few moments, his mind recapping the things she had told him. "You may still have to take trips that don't involve things like that though, I guess."

"Yes. I get requests to participate in foreign anthropological studies all the time. Several each month, usually. Just last week I was asked to find time for a trip to Darfur."

Brennan felt his heart rate take off again, and he was speaking before she could reassure him.

"No, Bones. It's 'hostile territory' just like you said."

"I didn't accept, Booth. But when it comes to genocide victims, it will nearly always be in hostile territory. I don't know that I will be able to turn them all down."

Booth squeezed her more tightly against his chest, deliberating.

"What if I could go with you somehow?"

"Under what pretext?"

"I don't know, your personal security… something. I could figure it out."

"Well I have no objections, except that I would hate for you to spend all of your vacation time on security details."

"I don't care about that. I just need to know that you're safe."

She nodded and kissed his bare chest lightly.

"The next time a trip comes up, I'll see what I can do to arrange that."

"Really?"

"Of course. It's not really an inconvenience. And I don't want you to worry."

"Thanks, Bones," he said, hugging her tightly and allowing himself to relax a bit more. He continued to hold her as she drifted to sleep, but he stayed awake for hours. Booth knew full well that the moment he succumbed to sleep, his nightmares would find him. Just as they had done the last time Brennan had opened up about her past. The thought of losing her terrified him. He had known since the first night they spent together that she had put herself into dangerous positions in the course of her work. But he had come to accept it for its similarity to the way he had done the same for the military and later the FBI.

Booth remembered the way she had called him brave and wished aloud that she had his courage. He shook his head at the memory. _How could she possibly fail to see how brave she was?_ Brennan may have wished she was more courageous, but Booth found himself wishing the opposite. Her utter fearlessness terrified him, in the stories of her past as well as in her actions while they were in the field. She seemed to always be rushing forward into an unknown situation or refusing to stay in one place for her own safety.

Brennan may have thought his overprotectiveness was irrational, but he knew full well that it was simply good common sense.

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 **I'm a total whore for reviews. Don't leave me hangin!**


	14. Chapter 14

**As promised, this chapter is super steamy - at least the first part is. I would most definitely advise reading the first thousand words or so alone. Maybe with some ice water at the ready. ;)**

 **This one ends on a cliffie. Things are about to change.**

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Chapter 14

Brennan stayed long enough to eat breakfast again with Booth and Parker, but when they left for church, she headed to the lab. It was empty upon her arrival with only the occasional security or maintenance worker passing through. She hoped to finish the remaining identifications by four, so she worked diligently through lunch, secluded in the Bone Room.

The second ID proved more difficult than the first, and she concluded that this man must have been nearest to the explosion which had killed him. However, after checking and rechecking the remains against the medical records Homeland Security had provided, she felt comfortable in confirming the identification. Brennan packed the remains neatly into the storage containers in which they'd been delivered and moved them to a storage room until they could be shipped out again on Monday.

She glanced at her watch and headed to her office with a smile. It was half past four, so she knew Parker had just been dropped off at Rebecca's. The lab was still empty, and she hadn't seen anyone in several hours. _Perfect._

While they'd been in LA the previous week, Brennan had requested blinds to be installed over her office windows. Booth had yet to see them, and surprisingly no one else had seemed to find it odd enough to say anything to her on Friday. She knew that Booth had been slightly disappointed over her insistence on coming into the lab on a Sunday, and Brennan hoped that what she'd planned would make up for it.

She'd lost count of how many times she had fantasized about having sex with him in her office. _Hundreds,_ probably. And she knew his expressions well enough to know that the thought had crossed his mind at least a few dozen times as well. So with a wicked grin, she pulled out her phone to text him.

' _Emergency. I'm okay, but come to my office asap.'_

 _That ought to do it_ , she thought smugly. Her excitement grew when the phone in her hand rang, Booth's name popping up on the caller ID. She declined the call as well as the one that followed immediately after. He was probably in the car already. That gave her fifteen minutes at most. Brennan closed the blinds over each window in her office as well as the back of the glass door and stripped down to the lingerie she'd put on that morning while Booth had showered. On a whim, she slipped her lab coat back on and left the buttons open.

She moved to her chair and cleared the surface of her desk as well as she could before reclining back in the seat to wait. A remarkably short time later- _he must've utilized the lights_ and _the siren,_ she thought-Brennan heard his running footsteps approaching her office.

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Less than a minute after Booth had received her text, he was back behind the wheel of his SUV and racing toward the Jeffersonian. _Why wasn't she answering his calls?_ _Her text had said she was okay, but if that was true then why couldn't she pick up the phone?_ Possibilities whirled in his mind, and he simply wasn't sure what to make of it. So he'd flipped on the lights and siren and pushed the pedal to the floor.

The security guard had been at the main desk, but there was no one stationed inside the lab as there should have been when anyone was working on the platform. But he had only a moment to think about that before he noticed a change. _Since when does Bones have blinds in her office?_ He didn't pause to really consider the implications of that before bursting through her office door at a run. And when he spotted her at her desk, the air seemed to have gone out of the room.

She was reclining slightly in her office chair, smiling the sexiest smile he'd seen on her yet. And she was naked. Well, nearly naked. Beneath her open lab coat, she wore a deliciously tiny set of lingerie in a deep red tone that made her skin look like pale silk. Her legs were crossed, almost casually, and encased in thigh-high, sheer black pantyhose. On her feet she wore a black, strappy pair of heels that he knew would put her height level with his own if she were standing.

Booth moved his mouth somewhat spastically but couldn't seem to form words. Brennan's smile grew wider, and she noted the prominent bulge in his pants which presumably had not been there before he had come through the door.

"Good afternoon, Agent Booth," she said with a devilish expression. Booth still felt as though he'd been hit over the head as he watched her rise from the chair and saunter toward him.

"Bones," he moaned, finally locating his vocal chords. "Wow." His heart was sprinting as she reached for him, gliding her hands over his abdomen beneath his black shirt. Booth instinctively moved his hands inside the lab coat to caress her beautiful skin, wrapping his fingers gently around her hips before moving them around to cup her ass and pull her hips against his. Breathless already with the intensity of his desire, he leaned forward and captured her lips with his own. His hands roamed every accessible inch of her body, and she was quickly whimpering in his arms.

He embraced her gently around her torso and lifted slightly, walking her backward toward the chair she had just vacated. But it was not their destination. He pushed it out of the way and pinned her between his body and her desk. She practically ripped the shirt from his body before gripping his cocky belt buckle in order to pull him roughly against her hips. His tongue pursued hers, and his fingertips trailed down toward her center, setting her very skin on fire.

Within seconds, he was more nude than she was, and as much as he loved the lingerie, he couldn't wait another moment to see what was under it. She allowed the lab coat to fall to the floor, and Booth wondered how he would ever be able to look at it again without remembering her just like this.

"This set is… God, I don't even have words for it, Bones. You look amazing. Perfect. _So_ hot."

"Mmm, I'm glad you like it."

"I do," he replied into the dip of her neck. _So much_ , he thought. He coaxed her gently to sit on the edge of her desk and moved his mouth down her body, determined to taste every exquisite inch of her. He felt her fingers thread into his hair, pulling his head down to her breasts. They were heaving with the speed of her breath, looking like they might burst through their lacy confinement at any moment. The image made him harder still, and he was unable to resist the urge to pull the thin fabric down over her, allowing her breasts to spill into his waiting hands.

The sound of her whimpering his name made him wild with desire, and he seized a nipple between his lips, pulling her flesh strongly with the suction. Brennan fought the urge to cry out with her pleasure, and she pressed her lips together tightly. There may have been no one in the lab when he'd come in, but if she began shouting, _someone_ was sure to hear her eventually. She hooked her stocking-clad legs firmly around his hips and relished the feel of his thick arousal against her.

Booth groaned at her actions and became a bit more frantic to remove her undergarments.

"Do you have any idea how many times I've fantasized about this?" Booth asked her, his voice hoarse with yearning.

"I had hoped it was as least as often as I had," she told him through gasping breaths. He had unhooked her bra to free her breasts and was moving with deliberate haste to grip her underwear in his hand. It took rather a lot of self-control not to rip them, and Booth was proud that he was able to get them off of her body in one piece. The thong she'd worn on New Year's hadn't been so lucky. She stood up to allow him to remove them, but he left her stockings and heels in place.

"Jesus, Bones," he moaned. "You're gorgeous."

"I want you to take me, Booth. We have all night to take our time, but right now I want it fast. Hard."

Her words made his entire body ache with need, which only intensified when she turned to face away from him and pushed her buttocks suggestively against his erection, leaning over her desk. Booth needed no more encouragement. He grasped her hips firmly and slid completely into her wet sheath in one stroke. Brennan did cry out then, unable to stop herself. Booth set a steady but gentle pace for a few moments, allowing her body to grow accustomed to his size. She was extremely tight though, and his movements quickened involuntarily.

"More, Booth. Harder… please." Brennan ended her plea on a near-whisper and gasped when he complied. His hips moved in powerful thrusts, slamming into her repeatedly. Brennan gripped the edge of the desk for support. It was all she could do not scream when her first orgasm rippled through her.

He felt the spasms of her release and cried out at the exquisite pleasure of it. Booth knew that she could achieve another climax rather quickly with the right stimulation, and he moved one hand upward to cup her breast, pinching the hardened peak gently. The other hand slipped beneath her hips and down toward her center. His hips never ceased their movements as his nimble fingers applied just the right amount of pressure to her clit. It took mere moments before she was coming in his arms for a second time.

Booth eased out of her carefully and helped her stand up. He turned her back to face him, kissing her deeply before bending his knees slightly to lift her into his arms. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, and he carried her slowly to the couch. Booth sat down with her straddling his hips and allowed her to control their movements at that point. Brennan wasted no time in sinking down onto him, loving the way he filled her so completely.

She moved at a fevered pace, capturing his mouth in a passionate kiss that muffled their cries and moans. He was determined to feel her come just once more, and he moved his lips to the place on her neck, just below her ear, that he knew drove her crazy with want. His teeth scraped against the spot before he sucked her skin hungrily. He knew he was marking her, and it made him swell even larger within her. With his other hand, he grazed his fingers against her clit, and her reaction was instantaneous.

Brennan shouted his name with her release, no longer caring who might hear. Booth followed her swiftly with his own climax, and they clung to one another as the waves overwhelmed them. As they slowly came down from their high, they shared soft kisses and smoothed their hands luxuriously over one another's skin.

"Holy hell, Bones. I almost can't believe we just did that."

"So I take it you approve of the addition to my windows then?" Brennan asked, chuckling lightly.

"God yes. Though not nearly as much as I approve of what you were wearing." He shuddered a sigh, still feeling her aftershocks.

"I'm glad you liked it."

"Did you put that on this morning? Cause if I'd known that there's no way you would've been here all day."

She laughed, finally easing off of him to clean herself up. He followed suit then crossed the room to retrieve his clothing.

"I did have to be a little sneaky. I waited until you were in the shower."

"Well, that settles it then. I won't shower without you anymore."

"Fine with me, but it's fun to surprise you now and then."

He grinned at her and stopped dressing for long enough to drop a kiss on her smiling lips. "This might just be the best surprise I've _ever_ gotten. I'm gonna have to think really hard to come up with a way to return the favor."

Brennan smiled at the prospect and opened the door once they were decent. She peeked out across the lab and was pleased to see that it was still empty. They had certainly been much louder than they should have been, and it wouldn't have surprised her if their voices had carried even beyond the heavy glass doors.

Booth had similar concerns, and the smirk on the security guard's face was enough to confirm his suspicions. He recognized him as the same man who had expertly handled Michael Stires, and for that Booth forgave the man for his less than discreet response to what he'd heard.

They had agreed to leave Brennan's car there overnight since they planned to stop for dinner on the way to her apartment. She had noticed the guard's humored expression as well, and she blushed all the way to his SUV.

"Perhaps in the future, it might be prudent to have some sort of bribe in place ensure the silence of the security and maintenance personnel," she mused, buckling her seatbelt.

" _Bribe?_ First you blackmail a federal agent, now you want to bribe the Jeffersonian staff?" Booth teased her with a wide grin.

"Well the blackmail worked, didn't it? Bribery seems like the next logical step," she replied brightly.

"I suppose so. I guess it's a good thing that gossip and speculation about us is nothing new, or else I might really be concerned right now."

"Yes, I had a similar thought yesterday after your profoundly alpha-male behavior in front of Dr. Stewart," she told him, the amusement in her eyes belying the stern tone she tried to adopt. Booth didn't even bother trying to look sheepish.

"Yeah, well… secret or no secret, that idiot needed to be clear of where things stand."

"That I'm yours?" Brennan asked, a hint of a challenge flashing in her blue eyes.

"Just as I'm yours," he relied softly, the jesting tone completely gone from his voice. He joined their hands and squeezed gently. His poignant response had caught her off guard, and amazingly she could find no desire to object to his words. She wanted to belong to him just as much as she wanted him to belong to her. It was irrational, because no one _belonged_ to anyone; she knew that. But logical or not, she knew unequivocally that it was true.

He was hers. And she was his.

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Brennan woke before her alarm the next morning feeling pleasantly sore, particularly between her thighs. She had indeed made good on her promise to enjoy a slower but equally passionate go-round when they had finally made it home from the diner. She stretched languidly against her sheets and her lover, adoring the unconscious groan she elicited from his chest.

They were meeting with the prosecutor that morning to discuss Peter's hearing. She told herself there was no reason to be nervous, and Booth had reiterated that fact. However, she was still extremely preoccupied with the upcoming hearing. Statistically speaking, reporting an assault had rarely given her positive results. And even though she knew that the evidence would support her testimony, the traumatized teen inside of her couldn't help but worry about a backfire of some sort.

"What's got you looking so worried, Bones?"

His voice startled her a bit; she'd been unaware that he was awake. She turned to meet his concerned gaze and wondered just how long he'd been staring at her.

"I'm fine," she tried to reassure him. Booth rolled his eyes, knowing that those particular words out of _her_ mouth usually meant exactly the opposite.

"What's on your mind?"

"Just nervous, I guess," she admitted in a small voice. His arms instantly tightened around her, holding her close.

"There's nothing to worry about, Bones. The evidence is on your side, and nothing he can say or do changes that."

"I know, Booth. I'm being irrational."

"Well, I suppose you're entitled to that once in a while," he told her with a wink. The alarm sounded then, diverting her attention from whatever reply she had been about to give. "Come on, let's get ready to go. We can stop for coffee on the way."

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An hour later, they sat in a conference room across from a prosecutor named Paul West. Booth knew of him by reputation only, but the man was generally perceived as a good guy, if a bit cynical at times. His conviction rate was decent, but he tended to set the bar rather low when it came to specific charges and plea deals.

They made introductions quickly, and the prosecutor looked slightly dubious at the word 'partner.' Anyone with eyes could see the intimacy between them, but he chose to focus on the task at hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you both," he said cordially. "Now, I've reviewed all of the depositions as well as the evidence that's been submitted, and assuming that there is nothing to be added, I think it's safe to proceed with charges of harassment, breaking and entering, and assault and battery."

"No," Booth countered immediately. "You need to add that he's using his phone privileges to call her and leave empty voicemails. We can get the phone records to you. And all of those charges are only misdemeanors, he needs to be charged with felony assault of a federal employee."

"Yes, that would be preferable, however in this particular situation, I don't believe Mr. St. James would be convicted on that charge. He caused bodily harm, but not serious injury. And the assault did not occur while Dr. Brennan was working or as a result of her position as a contracted federal employee. I will add the harassing phone calls to the evidence, but also...the medical evidence may not be compelling enough for a felony conviction."

Booth ground his teeth in frustration. Sometimes he really hated this area of the law. The difference between a slap and a punch could be the difference between a misdemeanor or a felony, and the sentencing guidelines were wildly different between the two.

"Mr. West, I'm not sure what you mean about the medical evidence. I've seen everything that was submitted; what more is needed?" Brennan asked in confusion.

"I was referring in particular to the x-rays, Dr. Brennan. The defense attorney claims that the evidence of this particular assault is too obscured by past trauma in the same area to be truly credible."

Now Brennan was frustrated as well, and she inhaled deeply before answering.

"Any physician with even a year of residency should be able to see the difference between past and current skull trauma," she huffed. She knew it wasn't possible to be both a victim and an expert witness, but the argument really was ridiculous.

"Be that as it may, the judge in this case prefers clear and conclusive evidence. There's a chance that the defense attorney could get the medical evidence thrown out completely if the case goes to trial, and that would mean an even more lenient sentence."

"What do you mean _if_ it goes to trial?" Booth interjected. "You think he'll take a plea?"

"I do, Agent Booth. From his position, it's certainly wiser, particularly considering the evidence captured on the security tapes from Dr. Brennan's apartment complex."

"What are you offering?"

"I hadn't finalized anything yet, primarily because I wanted to speak with the two of you first. But my initial thought was a guilty plea to all three charges, each of which have a maximum six month jail sentence. I would also want to tack on two years of probation and court-ordered anger management therapy. Dr. Brennan, I know that you already have a restraining order against Mr. St. James, but I would like to amend it to include a 'no-contact' order as well."

Booth and Brennan were quiet for a moment, considering the man's words. Brennan spoke first, asking a question to which Booth already knew the answer.

"If he pleads guilty to all three charges, will he definitely be sentenced to eighteen months?"

"No, Bones. It will depend on the judge. He isn't required to follow the sentencing structure of a plea bargain, and if he orders more jail time than what Peter agreed to, Peter can withdraw the plea completely. Then it goes to trial."

"And you don't think the odds are as favorable that way, Mr. West?"

"Unfortunately not. This particular judge-"

"Judge Grant," Booth cut in. The men nodded at one another before Booth went on to explain, having done a little checking on the man in question. "He was a close friend of Judge Hasty, Bones. He's...not one of our biggest fans."

Brennan immediately recalled the name of the man who had killed Gemma Arrington, and asked "So you think this judge is corrupt as well?"

"Well, I don't think he's killed anyone, and there haven't been allegations of corruption, but I don't trust the guy. He supported Hasty right up until his conviction, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was more than a little residual irritation with the people who put his buddy in prison for murder, Bones."

"Agent Booth is correct. And it's for those reasons that I believe a plea bargain is the best way to ensure that Mr. St. James spends as much time behind bars as possible."

Brennan was silent for another few moments but eventually nodded her assent.

"Do you think he'll take the deal?" Booth asked.

"It would certainly be in his best interest, though I do acknowledge that the man seems a bit unstable. I'm not able to predict what he may or may not do, even at his attorney's encouragement. The hearing is set for two weeks out, and I should hopefully have an answer on the plea bargain fairly quickly."

They thanked him and left, clasping hands once they had reached the privacy of his SUV. Brennan watched his face as he pulled into traffic, noting the thin set of his lips and his narrowed eyes.

"Do you think he'll refuse the deal?"

"Probably not. But that's not necessarily the best outcome either, Bones."

"You think the prosecution would stand a better chance in a trial?"

"No, West had a pretty accurate measure of Judge Grant. I just wish there was a surefire way to make sure he ends up in jail for more than a few months."

Brennan nodded in agreement but recognized that such a thing was impossible. She squeezed his hand a bit tighter until he looked over at her.

"It'll be fine, Booth. Regardless of what happens. I'm not afraid of him," she reassured him with a beautiful smile.

"I know that… And you're right, I guess. It is what it is, and we'll handle it." Booth worked to keep his voice light and optimistic, but he couldn't help the direction his mind had taken. Depending on where Peter ended up for his incarceration, he could at least hope that maybe the time would be difficult for him.

He dropped her off at the lab with a promise to be back with lunch in a couple of hours. Before she reached to open the car door, he pulled her toward him quickly. Booth kissed her deeply and without hesitation.

 _To hell with the cameras._

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The following morning, Booth was notified of a new case. A woman's charred remains had been found in her equally burnt out vehicle. The case involved a missing child, which made it a top priority, so he set off for the Jeffersonian immediately. He found Brennan in her office, being interviewed by a young blonde woman. Booth cursed under his breath that he had momentarily forgotten about the interview. She had told him about it that morning, and he had dutifully reassured her. But the case of a missing kid had taken over his focus. The woman was laughing as he entered the room. Brennan was not.

"Doesn't leave you much time for a personal life, does it?"

Brennan's eyes spotted Booth as he slipped into a chair behind the camera. Her expression brightened and she sat up a little straighter, smiling when he motioned to the one on his own face.

"It's true, I'm more focused on my career right now."

"Most of our viewers are parents at home with their preschool-aged children. What will you tell your kids about the horrors that you see every day?" Brennan regarded her with a wary expression and thought briefly of Parker. _But he isn't mine_ , she reasoned.

"I don't have any children. But I don't think that talking to a child about those things would be appropriate." She tried to maintain her smile, but she found herself becoming irritated with the woman. _What a stupid question_ , she thought, managing to resist the urge to roll her eyes.

The woman-Stacie Something-floundered a bit for another angle. Brennan felt no less awkward.

"Do you have any advice for budding authors out there?"

Brennan stifled a groan. She hated that question.

"Well, the first thing you should have is an idea and then… well first you need something to write with. They… they know that. Well, obviously you need a writing instrument and an idea. I'm just not sure which should come first."

Booth looked at the floor, acknowledging that as incredible and brilliant as his girlfriend was, speaking to the media was not her forte. The woman wrapped up the interview then, and he heaved a sigh of relief.

Brennan approached him after belatedly freeing herself of the microphone.

"How was I?" Her tone was nervous, and he didn't have the heart to be honest with her in that moment.

"We'll talk about it on the way."

"On the way where?"

He quickly explained the context of the crime scene they were headed to, and he kept chattering until they reached it. Fortunately the drive was short.

"State troopers called in the Fire Department to put out a burning car. They found a body in the driver's seat. License plate and VIN are missing," Booth explained as they looked over the blackened vehicle.

"Why is the FBI involved?"

"One burned backpack, child-size sneaker. Plus the right side of the seat belt went missing, sliced away."

"You think it was a kidnapping?" Brennan asked in concern.

"I have to act that way. The first forty-eight hours after a child abduction are crucial. That's why you're here. You ID the victim, that tells me what kid I'm looking for."

She finished the preliminary examination and helped the techs pack up the remains to be sent to the lab. Booth drove her back and hung around while she and Zack continued the analysis. He knew that she didn't like him to hover, but in this particular case, he couldn't afford to waste time driving back and forth between her office and his. So he did his best to keep a comfortable distance between them, though his eyes never left her. He loved watching her work, even if the atmosphere was ruined by the sight and scent of death. Her complete absorption in the task was one of the first things that had drawn him to her. He also couldn't keep his mind from drifting back to the last time he'd seen her in that lab coat-and very little else.

"Dr. Brennan, Mr. Addy," Goodman alerted them, standing at the bottom of the platform stairs with Hodgins and an unfamiliar red-headed woman. "This is Miss Pickering. She's performing a security review for the State Department."

"One man's security review is another man's witch hunt," Hodgins said sarcastically.

"That would be Dr. Jack Hodgins," Miss Pickering said placidly.

"It would be, yes," Goodman confirmed with with a tone of resignation.

Brennan listened halfheartedly as Hodgins argued the outrage of being the subject of a security check. Goodman recalled her attention, and she acknowledged Miss Pickering's presence with a few perfunctory words. The woman looked put off by Brennan's demeanor, and Goodman suggested helpfully that she 'work up to Dr. Brennan' in the course of her interviews.

Brennan noticed Booth waiting patiently for any information she could give him, and she left the platform, speaking to him briefly before heading toward Angela's office.

"How close are you to IDing the victim?"

"I may be jumping the gun, but-"

"That's music to my ears," he assured her, giving her a tiny nod of approval for her uncharacteristic use of a metaphor.

"Considering this forty-eight hour thing, we should be looking at eastern European immigrants going back ten years."

"I can get that information for you. Angela doing facial reconstruction?"

"Yes."

"You know, if this works, I'm gonna buy you a puppy," he told her, walking with her to Angela's office.

"That would be inadvisable. You never told me how I was this morning," she said, changing the subject quickly. He was the only person whose opinion she trusted completely. "I asked how I did, and you said we would talk about it in the car, but we never did."

"Was it your first TV interview? Other than the surprise one in LA?"

"Yes."

"It was fine, you know, for a first interview."

"That was a qualified response," she replied. Booth saw the concern in her beautiful features and hated that her feelings might end up hurt because of something as silly as a television spot.

"It was fine, Bones. Look, if you're feeling uncomfortable in front of a camera, I can always help you practice some more." He leaned closer to her so that he could lower his voice, speaking so softly that even she nearly failed to hear him. "That might actually be a lot of fun, you know," he suggested wickedly.

She smiled back at him flirtatiously. It was amazing how quickly he could turn her moods. At that moment, she couldn't have cared less what the reporter or anyone watching might have thought.

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With Angela's help, the victim was identified as Polina Semov. She was an immigrant who was married to a man named Carl Decker. They had one son, Donovan, who was eight years old. Booth and Brennan left immediately to check their Cleveland Park address.

She spotted Parker's car seat in her peripheral and glanced briefly at the back seat. The reminder of their weekend brought a smile to her face, and Booth noticed.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head dismissively. "Just thinking about last weekend." Booth followed her eyes to the back seat and returned her smile. Being together with Brennan and his son was the most fulfilling time he had spent for as long as he could remember. He'd never felt so content. Brennan's mind was on a different track, however, and she hesitated for a moment before continuing. "Do you ever regret bringing a child into the world, knowing what you know?"

"No," he answered immediately, surprised at her question. "The world is better for Parker being in it. His conception may have been unintentional, but… I'm a better person for having him in my life." Brennan contemplated that quietly, and he continued, "Is that why you said you didn't want kids?"

"I never said that I didn't _want_ kids, just that I didn't _have_ any. Which is the truth." She paused momentarily, then said, "I do like children, but I can't really picture myself as a mother. I don't think I'd be much good at it, considering that most people who know me find me to be cold and uncaring. Not to mention that my social skills are rather stunted-"

"Bones," he interrupted firmly, "You are neither of those things. And the only people who could really believe that about you don't know you at all." Booth saw the doubt in her expression and continued. "You had no trouble showing compassion to David Cook. You were wonderful with him; you got through to him when I couldn't, Bones. And you're amazing with Parker. He already adores you and loves to spend time with you."

Brennan tilted her head, conceding that his son did, in fact, seem to be rather fond of her. The reminder put a smile back on her face.

"Thank you, Booth." He reached over to take her hand in his own.

"Don't mention it. It's the truth."

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The victim's house was empty and seemed to have been vacant for some time. But the more surprising turn of events was the presence of US Marshals surveilling the place from a van parked down the street. Booth had acted instinctively to stop the unknown men from leaving after he had spotted them, and with Brennan's help, they quickly had both men on the ground. All three men pulled their weapons, declaring themselves.

A short while later, Booth and Brennan found themselves in his office with his boss, and Brennan was reminded yet again that the man didn't seem to like her.

"Well, at least nobody got shot. Probably because _she_ didn't have a gun."

Booth chose not to take the bait and hoped Brennan would do the same.

"Sir, why is Carl Decker's home being watched by US Marshals?"

"Decker designs body armor for KBC Systems. He says they knowingly sent defective body armor to Iraq. Justice Department believes him, so they moved him to a safe house."

Brennan spoke up then, "Does the Justice Department think that Decker is in danger from the company?"

"He thinks he is," Cullen replied. "They want him to testify; they play along."

"Does Decker know that his wife has been killed and his child has been kidnapped?" Booth asked.

"No, and they don't want him to know."

"Why?" Brennan asked, disturbed that anyone would keep things like that from the man.

"Because it might prevent him from testifying," Booth explained.

Cullen knew that Booth wouldn't be granted access to Decker, and encouraged him to point his investigation in another direction. He left the room with barely a glance in Brennan's direction.

"I know you said he doesn't hate me," she told Booth with a hint of worry, "But he certainly doesn't seem to like me either."

"Don't worry about him, Bones. We'll be fine." Booth remembered their prior discussion about how Cullen might react to the news of their relationship, and he hoped that the man wouldn't give them any problems. They couldn't technically be split up because of their romantic involvement, but Booth didn't want his boss to find any _other_ reasons to do so.

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They agreed to operate under the assumption that the boy, Donovan, was still alive, and the case progressed more slowly than Booth would have liked. They interviewed the victim's sister as well as Decker's former boss but failed to come to any helpful conclusions. Brennan was able to determine that the victim had been electrocuted, and Angela's mass recognition program helped them to locate the US Attorney who had been Carl Decker's Justice Department 'handler.'

The man, Ken Weeks, was particularly irritated that Booth had pulled his face from a security video and posted it to their 'hot list.' He told Booth and Cullen that they had lost Decker when they were unable to put him in touch with his son that morning. Weeks described Decker as a genius, and Booth returned to the lab hoping that _his_ geniuses had some new information for him.

"If Decker's as smart as they say, how will they catch him?" Brennan asked when he found her in her office.

"Forget Decker, our job is to find his son."

"If Decker doesn't show up to testify…" She didn't need to finish the sentence; he could see the hope in her eyes.

"No. We can't assume they are going to let the boy live."

"Surely KBC isn't going to-"

"Bones, we don't know _who_ hired these guys. KBC, military, disgruntled shareholders, or it could be someone we haven't even thought of yet." He saw a wide and rather smug grin on her face when he looked at her again. "What?"

" _You_ just told _me_ not to jump to a conclusion." She pointed her index finger at him playfully, and he smiled back.

"No offense intended."

"You were right. I usually get to tell _you_ that," she reminded him.

"Well, our relationship has taken a whole new turn."

"That much is obvious," Brennan agreed, her voice lowering to a tone that made Booth wish they had time to close her newly-installed window blinds and play a very adult version of the 'quiet game.'

Unfortunately, Zack strode into her office at that moment and drew their attention back to the case. He spouted some numbers at Brennan that turned out to indicate how much electricity had been forced through the victim's body. Booth realized then that Zack might have some degree of insight into how Decker's mind might work.

"Zack, this guy Decker… He's like you. He's in the whole stratosphere, IQ-wise."

"What's his IQ?" Zack asked, looking intrigued.

"163."

Brennan chuckled proudly. "He's not where Zack is."

"If he's in the stratosphere, I'm in the ionosphere," Zack agreed smugly.

"The point is," Booth said insistently, "Decker escapes the US Marshals, tries to connect with his wife, finds out she's been killed. What does he do next?"

"His IQ is not a variable."

"Intelligence doesn't determine what you do so much as how effectively you do it," Brennan explained.

"It depends on what kind of person he is," Zack added.

"Well, you know...He's a loving father. Estranged from the mother of his child," Booth said awkwardly. Zack stepped closer to Booth and looked him in the eye.

"Sound like anyone you know?"

"Just back out of my personal space there, buddy." But Brennan agreed instantly with Zack's assessment.

"Zack's right. If you were in Decker's position, what would you do?"

Booth met her eyes in alarm, and he knew the answer immediately.

"We need to go," he told her urgently, leaving her office at a near run. She followed close behind him until they reached the SUV, and he called dispatch with their destination to request backup from local police.

"Did you just refer to me as an accessory?" Brennan felt she should probably have her own call number as well and wondered how to get one. It had to be easier than getting a gun. But Booth's mind was on the case.

"You asked me what I would do if I were Decker. They kill my wife, they take my little boy. I'm going to the source of the problem. I take him out." His words were spoken in a pragmatic tone, and she thought she knew what he meant.

"Take him out, like-" Booth gave her a serious look, confirming her assumption. "Oh." Brennan was silent then, wondering if he would do the same for her. But then she remembered the threat he had made to Peter and had her answer. If he'd been willing to do that before they were even involved, what _wouldn't_ he do for her now?

When they arrived at KBC Systems, Booth instructed the night watchman not to let anyone in or out other than the backup that was on the way. Brennan moved alongside him, and he fought the urge to pull her behind his back as he drew his gun.

"I enjoy having you with me, Bones, but I really need you to let the gun go first right now," he warned her. To his surprise, she obeyed without complaint, and they moved forward until they rounded a corner and saw a woman lying on the floor with a bloody nose. Booth recognized her as an attorney he had met with previously. While Brennan remained with the woman for another moment, Booth followed the voices that were coming from an office nearby.

When he entered, Carl Decker had a gun to the head of his former employer, and the older man shouted at Booth to shoot Decker. Brennan had crept into the room behind Booth and spoke to Decker in an even, reasonable tone.

"What you're trying to do-save your son-that's not going to happen if you die here tonight. Be rational, Mr. Decker. What you're planning has failed. You have to adapt."

"Adapt how?" Decker asked wildly. "All I want is for my son to live. You people just took my best chance," he said in resignation. He placed the gun on the desk and allowed Booth to cuff him.

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Cullen and Weeks both attempted to persuade Decker to testify against KBC, to no avail. Booth understood the man's logic perfectly. There was nothing he wouldn't do for Brennan or Parker, even if it meant that others were sacrificed. Decker instructed Booth to give Donovan a code word-Paladin-so that Donovan would know it was safe to trust him once they had located the little boy.

Not long after Brennan had returned to the lab, Booth entered his office to find a small box on his desk and a note which read 'Back Off.' The box contained one of Donovan Decker's fingers. Within minutes, he was walking agitatedly through the glass doors of the lab, and Brennan began to analyze the finger. She determined that the boy was most definitely alive when the finger was severed.

"Who does this?" Brennan asked him in disgust. "Cuts the finger off an eight-year-old boy?"

"Mercenaries. Professionals. They don't feel a thing."

" _I feel things_ , Booth," she said, turning away from her microscope to look at him. His use of the term 'professional' had bothered her.

"I never said you didn't, Bones," he assured her.

"I'm a _professional_ too. I do better work if I only see the finger and not the child. It doesn't mean I'm like them."

Booth could hear the emotion in her voice and was concerned that she might actually think he felt that way about her.

"Look, I know that, Bones. I've said it before-I know who you are. I would never think that you're anything like these people. But what I also know is that they made a big mistake sending us that finger."

"Why? Because it made you mad?"

"No. Because you're going to use it to catch them," he told her with a look of determined pride. "So gather up your squint squad. Let's get to work." She returned his smile, and stood up to do exactly that.

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As he had during the Charlie Sanders case, Booth felt an almost irrational urge to check on his son. He wanted to make sure that he was okay, but he also felt the need to simply hear his voice, talking about happy, little boy kinds of things. And just as before, the conversation eased his mind.

While Booth was on the phone with Parker, Brennan was taking her turn being interviewed by Miss Pickering from the State Department. As Brennan had expected, the stern looking woman wasted no time in asking her questions she couldn't legally answer.

"Can you tell me what you were doing in Cuba?"

"Only if you tell me first."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I don't know your security clearance."

"Well, what is _your_ security clearance?"

"You should check with the State Department."

"I'm _from_ the State Department."

"Then that should make it easy for you."

Miss Pickering was taken aback but remained determined not to let Brennan's coy responses derail her focus. Only Brennan noticed when Booth paused in the doorway, his expression silently asking if he was interrupting. Brennan didn't respond, so he stayed put as the woman from State spoke again.

"When you were in Cuba, did you meet with a man named...Juan Guzman?"

Brennan's eyes widened in shock, and she held up a finger signalling the woman to wait a moment for her answer. Booth watched her pick up the phone and dial a local number from memory.

"Hello. It's Dr. Brennan from the Jeffersonian. You told me to call you if anyone asked about… you know, _him_." She paused, listening to an old friend ask who it was who wanted to know. "Someone from the State Department named Samantha Pickering," she answered, reading the name from the woman's ID badge. The voice in her ear told her to put the woman on the phone, and Brennan did so.

"Pickering." The woman's face grew instantly pale when the man not only announced his identity but ordered her to suspend her investigation and stay put until someone showed up to destroy her notes. "Yes, sir. Yes, I'll...I'll wait here."

She handed the phone back to Brennan, looking stunned.

"Any more questions?" Brennan asked, slightly amused.

"No. Uh, no, in fact the entire review has been suspended," Pickering answered sheepishly. "I'm to wait here for someone to come and destroy my notes."

Booth was insanely curious, but now wasn't the time for those questions. Instead he entered the room and told her that they might have located the missing boy. Brennan jumped from her chair to follow him, and once they were in the SUV, Booth began to explain how they had figured out where to look.

"Polina didn't make any phone calls from her cell phone after she was kidnapped. But nobody turned it off. When she left the coverage area, the cell phone was automatically assigned a new routing tower."

"You can triangulate her position?" Brennan asked.

"Yeah, to within seventy-five square miles. There were six abandoned gas stations in that area. Five urban, one rural. SWAT team's gonna check them all, but I think it's the rural one."

"Why?"

"Because I used to do this kind of work," he answered through tight lips.

"What, rescuing people?"

Booth loved her even more for the confidence in her assumption, but he couldn't lie to her.

"Or being the person they needed to be rescued from."

"Oh," she replied. He didn't elaborate, and she didn't ask. She knew without a doubt that anyone he had detained in a remote location had to be the kind of person that the world would be better off without.

"If I had a choice, I'd pick the isolated rural one. The place is perfect. It's an abandoned truck repair depot. SWAT team will meet us there." Booth's expression was dark, and Brennan knew he was worried about the boy as well as remembering ugly things from his past. She thought quickly of a way to change the subject slightly.

"Why don't we ever take my car?"

"Do you have bullet-proof vests in the trunk?"

"No."

"That's why."

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When they arrived at the abandoned building, the SWAT team was indeed waiting for their arrival. They geared up to enter the building, but no one handed a vest or a weapon to Brennan.

"What about me?"

"Wait outside."

"But I don't want to miss anything," she replied. This was exactly the sort of situation that she felt required her to protect her partner. Ironically, he was thinking exactly the same thing. _No way in hell is she coming inside_ , Booth thought.

"Bones, these guys aren't like anyone you've ever come up against. Please, just...be someone you aren't for the next ten minutes and hang back. _Please_ ," he said, practically begging for her cooperation. Brennan wanted to retort that she had most certainly run into these kinds of people, but instead she simply nodded her assent, wanting him to be focused on his own safety rather than hers.

She waited impatiently as Booth disappeared into the building with several other armed men, pacing a little until she heard the sounds of shots fired. Her feet began to move toward the building without conscious thought, but her progress was halted by yet another bulletproof-vested man. Brennan's mind entered a state of acute panic that didn't subside until her partner exited the building with a small boy in his arms. The unknown man who had stopped her allowed her to push past him then, and she raced toward Booth in relief.

The boy's severed finger was heavily bandaged but still bleeding all over Booth's shirt as he took the child to the ambulance. They waited with the boy until his father arrived, and as they walked together toward the SUV, they crossed paths with Ken Weeks.

"Well done," the man commended Booth begrudgingly.

"Yeah, I hope you're good at your job, Weeks."

"Why's that?"

"Because otherwise, you've got nothing going for you," Booth answered snidely. He continued walking toward his vehicle, but Brennan hung back for a moment.

"He's a father himself," she told Weeks.

"Thank God I always had the sense never to let that happen to me," Weeks said in a jesting tone. Brennan's expression shifted to one of disgust, and she turned quickly to rejoin Booth, who was waiting for her in the SUV.

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"You okay?" He could read the irritation on her face and guessed that Weeks had been the one to put it there.

"Yes. But that man really is heartless. In the metaphorical sense," she added quickly. Booth smiled a little to hear her speaking metaphorically at all and reached over to hold her hand as they drove.

"I agree. I'm glad we don't have to deal with him anymore."

Brennan nodded but remained silent for the majority of the ride back to his place. They were both exhausted and hungry. They had both skipped lunch that day in their focus to locate Donovan Decker. It was now very late, and Booth belatedly recalled his body's need for fuel.

"Hey. Sid's is closed by now, but we could stop by the diner if you want. I know you didn't eat anything today, so you've gotta be hungry," he told her gently. At least he had eaten breakfast. Booth would be willing to bet that his girlfriend had consumed nothing but coffee all day. It would explain why she looked drawn but still somehow awake.

"That's fine. You missed lunch today too," she reminded him, smiling to herself over his relentless desire to feed her.

They sat down at what could already be considered their 'usual table' and ordered their 'usual meals.' Booth mused that before too much longer, the wait staff would have their choices memorized. Brennan's thoughts seemed to be a mile away, and he watched her curiously, trying to decide whether or not to ask what was on her mind. He was saved from the decision in the next moment, however, when she looked him in the eye and asked the last question he'd expected to hear from her.

"Booth, do you want to have more children?"

His face registered the surprise he felt, and he deliberated for a brief moment. He didn't want to scare her off, so he chose his words very carefully.

"Well… sure, maybe someday. But it's not only my decision of course. I would be happy with just Parker, and I would be just as happy with more children." Booth watched her process the information. "Does that make sense?"

"Yes…" Brennan trailed off, then went silent again, sipping her coffee pensively.

"Was there a reason you asked?"

"I just… wondered. This case, as well as that interview this morning… Well, the subject has been on my mind off and on today, and I thought it best to find out where you stood on the matter." She deliberated quietly again, then continued. "I have never imagined having children of my own, mostly because I was fairly certain that my personality wasn't suited for motherhood." Booth opened his mouth, wanting to refute her words, but she continued quickly. "I understand that you don't agree with that assessment," she assured him. "And perhaps I can concede that point. I do feel a strong affection for Parker as well as a desire to make sure he is happy… safe. But I'm not sure that's enough to indicate that I would be a good mother to him or any other child."

Brennan felt flustered and hoped that her words were clear enough to illustrate her point. But Booth understood her perfectly, and he had smiled warmly at the mention of her affection for his son.

"Bones, don't sell yourself short like that." He paused, seeing her confused expression and hurried to clarify. "What I mean is… don't underestimate yourself. You would be a wonderful mother, if you ever decided that it was something you wanted. I have absolutely no doubt about that. But whether you choose that path or not, it won't change the fact that I'll be walking it with you. And I'll be happy with you either way."

Brennan smiled him sweetly, feeling comforted by his encouragement. She hadn't decided anything yet, it was true. But they both knew that the fact that she was even _considering_ having a child at some point in the future was a major change for her. Booth didn't press her with more questions, and she felt extremely appreciative that he understood her so well.

"Thank you, Booth."

"Anytime," he answered, reaching across the table for her hand. He held it in his own for a moment before bringing it to his lips for a soft kiss. "I love you."

"I love you too," she replied with that crooked smile he adored.

After a few minutes of silence, he recalled a question that he hadn't had time to ask earlier.

"Bones… who did you call to get the State Department lady off your back?"

Brennan smiled in satisfaction at the memory of Miss Pickering's discomfort.

"The Secretary of Defense."

Booth inhaled his drink rather painfully and spent the next few moments coughing.

"Are you serious?"

"Of course," she replied succinctly. Booth wondered how exactly she had come to be on such close terms with a person like that in order to be able to call them directly. _Without having to look up their number._

"Uh… how exactly…?"

"You really don't want to know. And I can't talk about it anyway."

Booth decided to let it go for the sake of his own sanity and the fact that he very much wanted to sleep soundly that night.

When they had finished eating, she paid the bill quickly before he could argue, and they headed to his apartment. It was now nearly two in the morning, and the stress of the day combined with full stomachs had left them drowsy and worn.

Brennan removed her clothing with heavy-lidded eyes and fell into his bed. Booth copied her movements and reached to pull her toward him, finding her already asleep. He hoped that he could persuade her to go in a little late the next morning so that she could get as much sleep as possible. Booth snuggled her close against his body and inhaled her sweet scent, wondering how he had ever gotten a decent night's sleep without her in his arms.

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Brennan opened her eyes to the still-darkened room and struggled to determine what had woken her. She was groggy and disoriented, but at the second ring of the cell phone from the nightstand next to her, she moved robotically to answer it.

"Brennan," she mumbled sleepily.

"Dr. Brennan?"

"Yes?"

The voice on the other line was silent long enough to make her wonder if the call had failed.

"Hello?" Brennan asked, trying harder to wake up.

"Yes, Dr. Brennan. It's Deputy Director Cullen."

"Oh," she said in confusion. "Why are you calling me, sir?"

"I'm not," he answered, the smile on his face not quite evident in his voice. "I was calling Agent Booth."

Brennan's eyes opened widely then, and stared in shock at the phone in her hand which was most definitely not hers, trying to come up with an appropriate response. None came.

 _Damn._

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 **I know the 'answering the wrong phone' thing has been done, but it's just so damn funny. And don't anyone try to tell me they wouldn't like to see BB getting busy in her office. Cause you'd be lying.**

 **Reviews make my heart smile!**


	15. Chapter 15

**Happy Friday! Again, thank you so much for your kind words and compliments! This story hit 200 reviews with the last chapter, and I really can't explain how wonderful it makes me feel. Thanks to some unfortunate life circumstances, it's been quite a long time since I've been praised for** ** _anything_** **. So it definitely makes me eager to continue writing. :)**

 **Hope you enjoy this one as well!**

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Chapter 15

"Uh, just a moment, sir," Brennan said awkwardly, and she covered the bottom half of the phone with her hand and reached over to rouse her partner. He merely groaned in response, and she shook him harder, whispering his name frantically into his ear.

"Bones? What's wrong? Are you okay?" Once he had registered her urgency, his protective instincts moved to the forefront of his thoughts.

"I'm fine. Cullen's on the phone for you," she explained with wide eyes. Adrenaline had driven the fatigue from her body. "I was sleepy and answered without realizing it was your phone," she confessed.

Booth's eyes widened as well, and he took the phone from her quickly to assess the damage.

"Sir?"

"Morning, Booth," Cullen said smugly. Even if Brennan hadn't detected the nature of his boss's reaction, Booth certainly did, and he relaxed minutely. Cullen continued as though this sort of thing happened every day. "I need you at a crime scene in Anacostia ASAP. Some kids found a body in an alley, and the press is already swarming. You should, uh, bring Dr. Brennan along too. I'm meeting you there." Cullen gave Booth the address, and the agent parroted it to Brennan, knowing she would remember.

"We'll be there as quickly as we can, sir."

"Good. And Booth," he said quickly, "We'll talk about the other thing later today." Booth swallowed nervously before replying.

"Alright, sir. See you soon." Booth ended the call and looked back over at his girlfriend. She looked miserably guilty, terrified that she had done something to seriously risk their partnership.

"I'm so sorry, Booth. I should have checked to see whose phone was ringing before I answered. I was just so tired, and it's still early and-"

"Bones, calm down. It's okay." Brennan looked back at him doubtfully, and he continued, "He wants to talk to us about it later, but I could tell by the way he sounded that he's more amused than anything else. We'll be fine. Please don't worry."

"How can you be sure? He hates me; what if he-"

"He won't, Bones. Please trust me, okay? And he doesn't hate you. Like I've told you before, he just doesn't know how to work with you."

"But you do," she pointed out. "I tried to work with a number of other agents between our first two cases, and they all either seemed to hate me or were too unintelligent to understand how I work."

"Right," he agreed, glad to see that she was calming down a little. "And that's exactly why he won't split us up. Now come on, we need to get dressed. Some kids found a body in an alley, and someone alerted the press _before_ they called the cops apparently."

She slipped into a clean outfit, still thinking about their predicament, and her mood improved considerably when her brilliant mind lit upon a possible counterattack should Cullen prove to be problematic.

"You know, Booth, if he does find some ridiculous reason to try to separate us, I could always blackmail him. Tell him that if we don't get to work together, I'll just refuse to work with the FBI at all."

Booth faltered in the act of putting a leg into his pants and nearly fell flat on his face.

"Bones! You can't blackmail a federal agent!"

"Well it worked with you," she contradicted.

" _Please_ don't go around saying you blackmailed me. Okay? It's a federal offense, and no one else is going to understand that you weren't _actually_ blackmailing me."

"Of course I was. I said that I would release information to the press if you didn't let me come into the field with you. How is that not blackmail?"

"Because, Bones…" Booth groaned, weary of the argument already. "What you said isn't what convinced me to take you out in the field." She stopped in the act of pulling her shoes on to look at him.

"Then what _was_ the reason?"

Booth deliberated a moment, fastening his cocky belt buckle and pulling a clean pair of vibrant socks from his dresser drawer.

"If I hadn't been willing to take the risk, I wouldn't have done it no matter what you threatened me with. If I had thought I couldn't keep you safe or that you would be a liability, there would have been nothing you could say to convince me otherwise." He took a breath and met her gaze before continuing. "You convinced me with your dedication to finding the truth, with your insistence on seeing it through… I could see the passion for it in your eyes, and I recognized it as the same passion that I felt for the job. You wanted to see justice done, and that was something I could respect and sympathize with."

He moved toward her and pulled her into his arms, kissing her softly before resting his forehead against hers.

"You may think you won something that day, Bones, but I was the lucky one. And I've never forgotten that."

Brennan gave him a smile that warmed him straight through, and she leaned forward to press her lips to his again.

"Thank you, Booth."

"Any time. Now let's get going."

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Booth cursed under his breath when he saw the press staked out around the perimeter. The media had the capability to make a circus out of what otherwise might be a relatively simple investigation. He lifted the crime scene tape to allow Brennan to duck under and spotted his boss approaching with a rather bad-tempered expression. They commiserated over the irritation of press cases, and Booth was extremely thankful that his boss didn't mention that morning's phone mishap.

"Booth, I want this closed," Cullen told him firmly. "I don't want to pick up next Sunday's Post and read ' _Church Kids Find Mystery Corpse Dressed for Halloween; FBI Remains Clueless.'_ "

"I guarantee you won't read that, sir. I'm on it." Booth watched as Zack and Hodgins arrived at the crime scene and moved in Brennan's direction. "Uh, sir…" Booth said quietly, hating that he had to bring it up. "Until we all get a chance to meet later, I'd really appreciate it if you kept quiet anything you may have assumed from that phone call earlier, sir. I think discretion is the safest course of action at this point."

Cullen eyed him speculatively. It wasn't as though he hadn't expected this at some point. In fact, he was surprised it hadn't happened sooner. And he was impressed that his agent and the lady scientist had been able to keep it quiet for even day. Cullen had seen the way Booth looked at her, the way he almost guarded her at times. They were both incredibly professional about the whole thing, which reassured Cullen that they most likely wouldn't be causing him any personnel problems.

"I agree, Booth. Call my secretary and set something up for later today, alright?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you," Booth replied quickly. As Cullen stalked away, Booth approached the squints with optimistic determination. The victim was wearing an odd kind of lightweight suit that did actually resemble a Halloween costume, just as Cullen had said.

"Okay. So did he jump, or was he pushed, Bones?"

"That's what we have to figure out. We'll take the skeleton in, get some answers in the next few days most likely."

"No, you don't have to solve the whole case. Just tell me if I'm looking at a murder. Maybe, you know… pull a quick ID?" Booth's request was accompanied by the most charismatic smile she had seen on him in days, and she realized that she had missed it over the course of the Decker case. That didn't mean, however, that she didn't know exactly what purpose it served him.

"Don't use your charm smile on me," she warned playfully. He looked only slightly sheepish.

"What? It's a mark of respect, that's all," he claimed. _Sure it is_ , Brennan thought in amusement.

Once the remains were packed up to be moved to the lab, Booth and Brennan skirted quickly around the reporters and cameras and returned to the SUV. As Booth drove them away from the scene, Brennan addressed his obvious mood change.

"You seem to be in a better disposition than when we arrived at the crime scene," she remarked. "Did you talk to Cullen about his phone call?"

"Yeah, very briefly. He still wants to talk to us later today, but I think he's fine with it. He seemed amused and not even the slightest bit surprised. Almost like he expected it to happen, and judging by the rumors that have gone around, I'm pretty sure he _was_ expecting it. I asked him to keep it to himself until we've all had a chance to talk, and he agreed that discretion was the best way to go right now."

"Oh…" Brennan said in mild surprise. "That wasn't at all the reaction I was expecting. You really think he's fine with it?"

"I really do, Bones. Don't worry about it, okay?"

"Yes, I'll focus on the case. You'll let me know what time we need to go to his office?"

"Of course," he agreed, reaching over to squeeze her hand and bringing it to his lips. "And you'll let me know as soon as you have an ID?"

"Of course." She smiled, feeling much less anxious about her accidental outing of their relationship. And it was with that frame of mind that she leaned over to kiss him soundly before exiting the car at the lab and waving him off. Brennan chuckled to herself lightly at the bemused expression that her sudden affection had put on his face, and she headed up to the platform with a rather dazed and happy look of her own.

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Dental records identified the victim as seventeen-year-old Warren Granger, and after notifying the boy's mother and stepfather of his death, they were permitted to look around his bedroom for insights. In addition to being a bit of a recluse, the boy had been terminally ill.

"Unbelievable," Booth said with a sigh as he picked up a couple of comic books. "It's quite a collection of comic books."

"Hodgins said that the cellulose mass we found with the victim was a graphic novel. He sent it to Angela for analysis and recovery."

"Sweet," Booth said, distracted by a specific comic book he'd found.

"Sweet?"

"This is Batman number one-twenty seven," he told her, holding up the book. "Featuring the hammer of Thor. This is worth about _three hundred bucks_." Brennan raised her brows and fought to moderate the huge smile on her face.

"Booth, are you a _nerd_?"

"First of all, you mean ' _geek_.' And no, I'm not. Okay? It's quite normal for an American male to read comic books." She didn't miss his defensive tone and couldn't help but think how adorable he was when he got all flustered like that.

She received a text from Zack, telling her that he'd found parry fractures on both of the victim's ulnae.

"That's arms," she translated distractedly, forgetting all of the studying he'd done.

"I know," he reminded her in a light tone. "I also know that 'parry fracture' means the kid fought back, Bones." His knowledge earned him a dazzling smile, and Booth found himself wishing they weren't working a case at that moment.

"Small stature...a geek...and he fought back," she enumerated. She analyzed the boy's desk briefly after finding nothing but games on his desktop computer. There was evidence that the victim had written long hand as he sat at the desk, and Booth held up a comic book entitled Citizen 14. The costume of the main character was identical to the suit the victim had been wearing.

"Superhero," she said in confusion.

"Let's get this to Angela and see if she can make anything of it. From the art, if nothing else," he suggested hopefully. Brennan agreed, and they returned to the lab after assuring the victim's parents that they would be in touch.

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In the few hours that followed, the team did a lot more theorizing than Brennan was comfortable with, but they had managed to determine that the Citizen 14 comic book had been written by their victim. Although Brennan despised psychology, she didn't dismiss their theories out of hand. She and Booth visited the comic book store they had connected to the evidence found on the victim, and they'd found a group of highly unusual young adults who were dressed in garish costumes and used false identities.

They had also made a stop at the bowling alley where the victim worked, speaking to the married couple who had employed him. One of the boy's friends had told them Warren had been dating someone at work: a person who seemed to have cropped up as an ethereal being in his handwritten comic books.

In the mid-afternoon, Booth stopped by the lab to pick her up for their meeting with Cullen. He found her alone in the Bone Room, and her behavior puzzled him. She was sitting-which was odd enough in itself-in front of an machine he didn't recognize. Every few seconds, Brennan would breathe hot air onto whatever the machine was holding. The sight and sound of it was somehow mesmerizing, and when he asked what she was doing, she answered him in a low tone that sent his mind straight to the gutter.

"Breathing on the sample dissipates static electricity and makes it easier to cut."

"You seem nervous," he noted, wondering if she could sense his own nerves.

"If I get this right, I'll be able to tell you the age, sex, and race of Warren Granger's attacker." Her voice was like velvet, and Booth watched her lips open several more times to breathe hotly onto the bone sample. He struggled resolutely to relay the case details he'd unearthed during their short period of separation, almost pleading with his body to cooperate.

"Look, this piece of bone you're analyzing. How did it get lodged in Warren Granger's neck?"

"It was deposited by the same weapon which severed his spinal cord."

"Doesn't make it the killer's bone," he pointed out. She contemplated his words for a moment.

"Are you thinking...a separate murder victim?"

"The woman he loved," he posited. Brennan looked startled.

"I don't think she's dead."

"Why?"

"Because this is an arm bone. It wouldn't have been fatal," she explained, a light of comprehension brightening her face. "I think I know exactly who it belongs to." She left the room then, and he followed close behind her, listening as she explained that the wife of the bowling alley manager had been favoring her arm.

"That's a great catch, but we really need to head over to the Hoover first. We're meeting with Cullen in twenty minutes, remember?"

"Don't you think we should follow the lead first?" Brennan asked, stalling.

"We'll head back to the bowling alley as soon as we're done with Cullen. Or maybe even tomorrow morning," he assured her. "Even if the wife's bone did somehow end up in the murder weapon, it's not enough to make an arrest yet. We don't know who had motive to hurt her."

"You always think it's the husband," she pointed out as they left the lab and walked toward the parking structure.

"Yeah, well, statistically it's the best bet," he said grimly.

She was silent for a moment, remembering the things she'd told him about his parents. At least her parents had seemed to love her before they had disappeared. Her memories of them were positive, up to that point, and they had seemed to be in love. Shaking herself out of her reverie, she watched the scenery glide past them through the window. Booth seemed to sense her distraction and misinterpreted the source of it.

"I promise, it'll be okay, Bones. Really."

"I trust you," she said plainly. "I'm doing my best to remain optimistic."

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As they entered Cullen's office, Brennan tried in vain to decipher his expression the way she could so often read Booth's. He didn't seem angry, but neither did he seem pleased. The conundrum vexed her. Cullen, on the other hand, was highly amused at the wide-eyed, nervous appearance of the woman standing next to his agent. He fought to hold back his amusement for just a little while longer.

"Have a seat, you two," he told them in a flat tone. Cullen studied them for a moment before turning to Booth. "Why don't you tell me how you expected this all to work."

Booth looked a bit startled and took a moment to gather his thoughts.

"Well, sir… Bones-Dr. Brennan-and I been romantically involved since Christmas, and we've been very careful about discretion and professionalism while at work."

"I suppose that doesn't extend to extremely early morning phone calls from your boss?" Cullen asked with a grin. Brennan looked relieved to see his smile, and he noticed. "My wife and I keep our phones on opposite nightstands. Perhaps you should try that in the future." By this point, Cullen's laughter could no longer be contained, and Booth joined in, relieved in spite of all the encouragement he'd given his partner.

"Yes, it won't happen again, sir. We are keeping our relationship private for at least a little while longer so that the news doesn't adversely affect my team," Brennan informed him. Cullen nodded in response, still chuckling.

"And the FBI doesn't have any issue with it, sir?" Booth verified.

"Well, the Bureau generally discourages fraternization between partnered agents, but Dr. Brennan is a contracted consultant. Our rules don't apply to her in this instance." He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a manilla file, opening it to reveal a typed document. "I do, however, suggest that you both sign a disclosure form, just as a precaution against any issues that may crop up in the future. You never know, Booth, someday you could end up with a boss who takes the rules a little too seriously."

Booth laughed and shook his head. "You're much too young to be thinking about retirement, sir." He handed the form to Brennan for her signature.

"Nah, most likely it'll be young agents like you that get promoted to my position and put me out of a job," Cullen returned good-naturedly. Booth was flattered by the compliment, but quickly disabused him of any notion of that sort.

"I appreciate that, sir. But I prefer to stay where I am. I belong in the field." As he spoke, he looked fondly at Brennan, and she signed the form before handed it back, her attention caught by Booth's subtle implication that he would refuse career advancement in order to remain her partner. But before she could respond to either of them, Cullen was dismissing them and Booth had risen from his seat.

"Thank you, sir," Booth said genuinely. He placed a hand to his partner's back to lead her through the open doorway, but she turned suddenly to address Cullen again.

"Yes, thank you. I'm very glad that I didn't have to blackmail you. I wasn't sure it would have worked as well as it did with Booth." She flashed him a winning smile and disappeared down the corridor, leaving both men gaping in her wake.

"She didn't mean it like it sounded, sir," Booth assured him in embarrassment. Cullen laughed heartily.

"Well, it _sounds_ like she successfully blackmailed you."

"It really wasn't like that," Booth said with an indulgent grin. "She just knew what to say to get me to agree to take her into the field on the Eller case."

"Well, in any case, I'm glad you found someone who can challenge you," he replied, still shaking with laughter. "Congratulations."

"Thank you, sir." Booth left quickly to track down his girlfriend. He found her waiting for him by the elevators, a lighthearted expression gracing her flawless features.

" _You_ are in trouble," he told her with mock severity.

"Oh? Going to punish me?" Brennan asked in a quiet and undeniably hopeful tone. Booth stifled a groan as the elevator opened to let them in. The doors closed, and they were alone.

"Most definitely," he confirmed, backing her up against the wall and dropping tantalizing kisses along her jaw line.

"Promise?"

Booth gave her a wicked smile before glancing at the descending numbers on the digital panel.

"Now, now, Dr. Brennan. Didn't we just finish promising my boss to be professional and discreet in the workplace?"

"You didn't seem to feel that way the other day," she whispered in a heated breath against his ear. "Bending me over my desk… making me _scream_." Her words elicited a tormented moan from his throat, but before he could retaliate, the doors _dinged_ open at the parking level. They sprung apart quickly, but no one was there to see.

He drove them to his apartment with her hand on his thigh and her mouth speaking softly in his ear. Every word that came from her lips seemed to set his very skin aflame, and she barely had time to slam his front door shut before he began to undress her. Yet another pair of underwear was sacrificed to his passion, but she couldn't find the will to chastise him for it.

In seconds, they were naked, and he had picked her up with both hands under her ass to carry her the few short steps to his dining table. Without preamble, he bent down to plunge his tongue between her slick folds, the taste of her only adding to his frenzy. Booth moaned long into her center and captured her clit lightly between his teeth, sucking hard and revelling in her shouts of passion.

Brennan screamed his name as she came hard into his mouth, clutching the table in her ecstasy. Before she could catch her breath, he stood up and thrust deeply into her exquisitely tight warmth. His hands gripped her hips firmly, and he set a feverish pace, pounding into her as though the mere thought of stopping might actually kill him. Her legs encircled him to bring him deeper, and he bent his torso over her to capture the peak of her breast in his mouth. At the combination of his lips tugging, hands grasping, and hips thrusting, Brennan felt herself tumble over the edge yet again.

He shattered with her this time, crying her name against her heated skin and trembling with the magnitude of his need for her. As they came down slowly, she pulled his face level with hers.

"I love you," she told him, still breathing heavily.

"I love you too, baby." And their lips met again, rekindling the fire quickly. Booth picked her up once more and carried her to the bedroom. He caught her gaze, finding her incredible blue eyes staring at him lovingly. A sexy, crooked smile lit her beautiful face.

"If that was my punishment, I'm definitely going to misbehave more often."

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They returned to the bowling alley shortly after it opened the following day. Ted and Lucy McGruder stood together, manning the shoe rental and lane controls. They greeted the partners casually, and the man asked if they had any news about Warren Granger. While Booth occupied Ted with a search for the victim's final paycheck, Brennan asked his wife why she was favoring her left side.

"Why would you ask me that?"

"I noticed how you held yourself the last time we were here. I didn't think anything of it, though viewed through the current context, I-"

"What is she talking about?" Lucy asked Booth in alarm.

"She wants to know how you hurt yourself," he told her gently. He had watched his own mother's movements often enough to recognize the signs of abuse when he saw them.

"You walk as though your left ribs are cracked," Brennan explained. "Also, you favor your left arm."

"Oh… I, um… I fell on the lanes. They're very slippery."

"Falling would bruise a number of ribs. You're favoring only one or two," Brennan countered.

"They type of damage done by a fist," Booth added. Lucy looked even more uncomfortable, and he continued. "Look. Were you and Warren close?"

"He was a nice kid. A really nice kid." Booth thought that she might have been about to say more, but at that moment, her husband returned with the missing paycheck. He and Brennan thanked him and walked toward the exit.

"Her husband beats her," she told him quietly.

"Bones… Talk about multiple hypotheses." He was surprised to hear her say something like that without the 'conclusive proof' she liked so much.

"It's a leap, yes, but it was bound to happen with as much time as I'm spending with you. I mean that as a compliment," she told him with an earnest smile. He returned it, admiring her ability to evolve without fear. She did it more often than she realized.

They agreed that the couple they'd just spoken to most likely were represented as the villain and the ethereal woman in the victim's comic books. Brennan wanted him to turn around and arrest Ted McGruder, but he knew there wasn't enough evidence for that yet.

"For that, we need something just a little bit more real."

"Evidence," she supplied.

"Cold, hard facts, baby."

"Don't call me baby."

"You didn't mind it last night," he said, his bright red belt buckle seeming to bounce just a little bit more as he walked.

"Maybe, but now we're working," she sassed. He shook his head, still smiling.

"We're really gonna have to work on our boundaries…"

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They had gathered around the Angelator to simulate possible murder weapons, but it was Booth who eventually determined which easily accessible object could have inflicted the victim's precise wounds. A bevel knife, used to clean bowling balls. Booth called backup to the McGruder's home, but it was deserted.

He re-routed the back-up team to the bowling alley as he and Brennan sped in that direction. They arrived before the rest of the agents and heard the couple arguing from a back room when they entered.

"Domestic disturbances are always weird, okay?" Booth whispered. "The woman gets beat on by her husband, the calvary turns up to save her. You know, you'd think she'd be on the same side as the rescuers, but…" he trailed off with an uneasy chuckle.

"You're saying watch out for the wife," she assumed aloud as a door opened and the couple's arguing became louder.

"All I'm saying is just stay alert. Okay, Bones?"

"Okay."

"Why are we doing this?" Lucy's voice pleaded with her husband.

"Shut up," he replied.

"You didn't do anything," she insisted plaintively, watching Ted remove money from the safe.

"Lucy, I swear to God, if you don't shut up-"

"No, I know you wouldn't hurt Warren."

Booth and Brennan moved into view of the couple, and Booth felt slightly sickened at the sight of them. They weren't so different from his parents.

"Of course he would. You see, that's what he does," Booth told the woman. "He likes to beat up people weaker than him."

"We are closed," Ted said firmly.

"Well you left your door unlocked," Brennan mouthed off. "Probably an oversight due to your state of panic."

"Yeah," Booth agreed. "The lights were on. You see, we suspected a robbery. Say, you have a bevel knife?"

"A what?" Lucy asked, confused at his tangent.

"It's a three-sided knife," Brennan explained.

"You know, to clean out bowling ball holes. Say, I used to have one back in the day. You wouldn't happen to have one around here, would you?" Booth asked, forcing himself to remain calm and keeping his eyes on Ted.

"You need a warrant," Ted exclaimed. "You need a warrant to take any of my stuff."

"Lucy, we need a bevel knife," Brennan told her, ignoring the woman's husband.

"We keep one in here…" She glanced anxiously at her husband before producing the knife from a toolbox.

"Shut up, Lucy!"

"Why don't you smack her around a little bit there, huh? Keep your woman in line?" Booth sneered.

"Yeah, this could have done it," Brennan confirmed after examining the knife briefly.

"Say, Bones. That bone chip… Second victim or murderer?"

"Well, for Warren's sake, I hope it was the murderer."

"Me too."

"What are you talking about?" Ted shouted. "Just get out of here."

"It would be his left arm. Warren was right-handed."

Disregarding Lucy's protests, Brennan approached Ted and hit his left upper arm with her elbow, immediately producing groans of pain from the man as well as a bright red stain on his shirt. The man made a rather pathetic attempt to hit her, and she blocked him easily, seizing his arm and throwing him over the pool table which stood next to them. He continued to groan in pain.

Booth stepped in then, willing to let her have her fun and rather enjoying the show, but he was more than a little eager to arrest the man.

"I got him, I got him. Alright." He cuffed the man's wrists quickly, feeling his mood lift. "Aw, hell, Bones. Looks like you opened up an old would there." Booth's voice took on a joking tone until he turned back to Ted. "You know what? You're under arrest. I really hate a wife beater. I really do. Almost as much as I hate someone who kills a dying kid."

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That evening, Booth was distracted and sullen, his mind on his past. Brennan noticed, of course, but she wasn't sure how to help him. In truth, she didn't have to say anything at all. Her tight embraces and gentle kisses were exactly the comfort Booth needed.

"Thank you," he told her, holding her close as they stood in her kitchen after finishing the last of the dinner cleanup. She looked up at him in mild confusion, uncertain what she had done to deserve his gratitude. He saw the question in her eyes and continued. "For being you. For knowing what's on my mind without me having to say a word about it. No matter how irrational that may be," he teased her lightly.

"I love you, Booth. I'm sorry this case drew parallels with your own personal history." He smiled at her contentedly.

"I love you too. More than words can say." He leaned down to kiss her again and began to walk her backward toward her bedroom. "What do you say we go to bed?"

"Are you tired?" Brennan asked, incredulous as well as concerned. "It's not even nine."

"I said ' _bed_ ,' Bones. Not ' _sleep_.'" He gave her a comically suggestive waggle of his brows, and she laughed the breathy laugh he loved so much.

They made love slowly, paying almost painstakingly close attention to every centimeter of skin, every gasp, every moan. Hours later, they laid wrapped up in each other, more at peace than either had felt all day.

"I love you," he said quietly. "No matter what's happening or how rotten I'm feeling, you always seem to find the right thing to say or do to make me feel better. It's like you can magically make my stress go away, just by being you." She smiled at him affectionately but wasn't about to let that one slide.

"Magic isn't real, Booth."

"Maybe not," he conceded. "But _this_ is."

And he kissed her deeply then, telling her without words that their love was more magical and real than anything else could ever be.

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Three days before Peter's hearing, Booth and Brennan were called to a crime scene in Little Salvador. Booth patiently explained how this case ended up in their laps as opposed to the local homicide unit, and he watched her face cautiously as she observed the neighborhood passing by her window.

"It's like they recreated their country right here-right down to being terrified of the police," she remarked with a guarded expression.

"A lot of these people are undocumented. They get nervous around law enforcement," he speculated as they exited the car and approached the arresting officer. The officer was holding the suspect, a Salvadoran man who refused to make eye contact. "What do we got?"

"He ran the stop sign. I pulled him over; he tried to run."

Booth stepped closer to the suspect and pulled the back of the man's collar down a few inches to reveal a tattoo connected to a local gang.

"Oh, look at this, huh? Mara Muerte tattoo." He spotted Brennan's confusion and said, "It's one of the most feared gangs in the area. No wonder he was chauffeuring a dead body around, huh?" Booth got closer to the man's face. "Couldn't just join the Boys Club, pal?"

Brennan kept her expression neutral and addressed another policeman standing nearby.

"And I'm here because…?" She allowed him to lead her to the trunk of the car.

"Routine inspection of the vehicle… I found this." The man looked a bit green and stepped back quickly give Brennan some space while she slipped into her latex gloves.

"Vertical brow ridge suggests female. Recently dug up, looks like." She noticed dirt on the suspect's hands and asked someone to hold them up. "We should analyze the dirt on his hands and compare it to the dirt on the remains."

"Where was she buried?" Booth asked the man. When the suspect didn't answer, Brennan repeated the question in Spanish but got no response either. "Great, now he's ignoring us in two languages."

Brennan asked the local cop for the location of the nearest cemetery, but the nearest one he knew of was ten miles away. She turned to the people lining the street and asked in Spanish if anyone could tell her of a cemetery close by. A few of them shook their heads and turned to walk away, others simply stared at her.

"Maybe your Spanish is a little rusty?" Booth suggested a little sarcastically. Nothing about his Bones was _rusty_. She didn't notice the tone in his voice and simply answered the question.

"They come from a place where getting involved gets you killed."

In the next second, a series of gunshots rang out, exploding car and shop windows, and sending everyone to the ground to take cover. Booth drew his gun and returned fire, pulling Brennan down behind the car. He leaned over her, shielding her body with his own. It was over quickly, but the damage had been done. Booth spotted the suspect sprinting down an alleyway and sprang from his position to give chase. Brennan followed behind at a slower pace, finally rounding a corner to see the suspect disappearing over a the other side of a chain link fence. There was a large piece of metal like a broken refrigerator door leaning against the wall near him, and Booth kicked it violently, uttering some colorful words as he walked back toward her.

"Are you alright?" Brennan asked, checking him for signs of injury.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Are you?" He performed a similar examination, but she seemed to be unharmed. The alleyway was empty but for the two of them, and he pulled her hard into a tight embrace, feeling her body trembling slightly. "Jesus, Bones… that could have been really bad." He planted a lingering kiss on her forehead before releasing her, and they walked back to the crime scene.

Several bystanders and a local deputy had been hit, but their injuries weren't fatal. Booth and Brennan hung around to see the remains packed up and hauled off to the lab, and they followed not far behind. He held her hand in the car, gripping nearly hard enough to cause her pain, but she remained silent. Brennan could feel the tremors of shock and anger that still washed through him every few minutes, and she hoped for his sake that this case would be solved quickly. With Peter's hearing just days away, the last thing he needed was to be this worked up.

Booth pulled the SUV to a curb near the main doors and reached over place his hand gently against her cheek. She looked back at him with wide blue eyes and turned her face slightly to press her lips into his palm.

"I'll be back after I talk to the guy they're bringing in. Head of a rival gang. Don't go anywhere without me, alright? We still don't know enough about what happened."

Brennan nodded, agreeing easily. Her trembling was still barely discernible, but Booth could read her anxiety. She saw his concern and sought to reassure him.

"I'm fine, really. It's not the first time I've been shot at. I just wasn't expecting it, that's all," she explained. "Are you sure _you're_ okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Maybe it wasn't the first time you've been shot at, but it's the first time you've been shot at in the field with _me_. And that pisses me off. If we hadn't moved quickly enough…" Booth trailed off, feeling sick at the images that went through his mind.

"But we did. And we're both uninjured. Go do what you do, and I'll do what I do. We'll be fine."

"I love you, Bones." She smiled at the clear honesty in his words.

"I love you too. I'll see you later." She leaned forward to kiss him briefly then, got out of the car, and disappeared through the double doors.

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Brennan bypassed the platform where the remains were being laid out and walked instead toward her office. She closed the door as well as the blinds before taking her lab coat from its hook. But rather than put it on, she simply stood for a moment, getting her bearings. Regardless of the way she had comforted Booth, she was _not_ fine.

After years of doing the kind of work she did, Brennan had become fairly adept at compartmentalizing on the go, and she rarely felt the need to employ meditation techniques or to distance herself from remains in order to do so. But her mind was in another time, another place. And she needed a moment.

Images from her time in El Salvador flooded her mind, and it took her a full five minutes to clear them so that she could focus on her work. She knew that if she delayed any longer, someone would come to check on her, and eventually Booth would be there as well, with his uncanny knack for knowing exactly what she was thinking.

She slipped into her lab coat and inhaled deeply before opening the door, joining the others on the platform. Brennan listened passively as they announced their findings, not touching the remains herself.

"Dental exam shows shoveled incisors and striated enamel," Zack told her confidently.

"Indicating?" Brennan encouraged.

"Malnutrition. Which is consistent with anthropometrics suggesting the victim is from Central America."

"The body was found in a Salvadoran neighborhood." As she looked down at the young woman's decomposing face, the image of another set of remains floated before her eyes. The same in their origin, but younger. A teenage girl who had been thrown down a well. The woman they had found that morning hadn't been buried properly either, and Brennan felt her anger rise up in her chest.

"Make a sketch of the face," she told Angela, trying to maintain a level tone. "I'm not sure we'll find a match. She might have been undocumented." She picked up a small evidence tray which held a delicate black rosary and handed it to her friend. "Goodman is an expert in religious iconography. Maybe he'll be able to determine where this rosary was made."

Angela took the tray, her eyes searching Brennan's face. She knew something was off, but she couldn't put a finger on it.

"Depression fracture on her occipital bone straddling the left lambdoidal suture. Looks like one hard hit, congruent with say, a baseball bat," Zack posited. But Brennan was still dealing with her anger, and she felt her facade slipping as she spoke again.

"She was religious. She should've had a casket, a proper burial with her name on a headstone." Her voice became much less controlled as she continued, "We are going to find out who she is, and we are going to give her that."

Zack nodded, looking slightly surprised at the change in his mentor's demeanor. But before anyone could speak again, Brennan stalked off the platform and back to her office. It would be a while before the bones were clean, and she preferred to wait in solitude. She decided at that moment that one way or another, _this_ young Salvadoran woman would get the funeral she'd been denied. Brennan had been unable to do that for the young girl from the well, had been unable to finish the identification process when she'd been captured. She knew of course that nothing she did now would be able to correct what had happened to either girl, but the thought of righting at least one wrong this way made her feel just a tiny bit better.

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When Booth showed up later that day, the bones had been cleaned, and Brennan stood alone on the platform, cataloguing the details. He climbed the steps, telling her that he believed the shooting to have been enacted by the suspect's own gang as a means of diversion so that he could escape. Brennan nodded, accepting the logic of that scenario, and began to tell Booth what they had discovered so far.

Not only was the victim about five weeks pregnant at the time of her death, but she had most likely been buried in a vegetable garden rather than a cemetery. Hodgins spoke up from a workstation next to the platform and explained that he was still analyzing particulates but could certainly identify the plant which had implicated a garden burial.

Since Brennan didn't think she could identify the plant, he really was left with no choice but to include Hodgins in their search of Little Salvador. The entomologist was immediately excited, but Brennan felt slightly disappointed at the prospect of his intrusion into what she always felt was 'their time.'

Not five minutes into their trip, Booth was beginning to regret bringing Hodgins along regardless of how helpful he might turn out to be. _Did the man ever shut up?_ He was monologuing on the social ramifications of corporate tax breaks, and to Booth's surprise, Brennan referenced the misfortune of the undocumented immigrants who fared even worse under the circumstances. She was secretly grateful for the distraction of his conversation.

Booth ground his teeth, telling Hodgins to look for a garden with the plant they were trying to find. But he continued to talk, and Booth felt his patience wearing extremely thin. He was still worked up from the shooting that morning, and the fact that he had to share his field time with anyone other than Brennan irritated him. It was by no means a new frustration: Zack probably thought it was totally normal for Booth to deliberately ignore him.

At any rate, Hodgins spotted a community garden a few moments later, though unfortunately not before Booth had voiced his irritation. He gave his squints their space while they investigated and managed to find another piece of the rosary that had been on their victim. Within minutes, Brennan found evidence of not one but two empty graves.

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After they returned to the lab, Booth made some phone calls to try to determine who tended that particular community garden while Zack and Brennan confirmed cause of death. The presence of a subdural hematoma indicated that the young woman would most likely have been conscious for some time after the assault. Brennan couldn't help but think that if the victim had sought medical treatment, she might still be alive.

Booth caught up with her as she walked back toward her office, stopping her before she reached it.

"Our gang unit's gonna bring in the leader of Mara Muerte, see if we can identify the gangbanger that got away."

"Why would a gang leader cooperate?" Brennan asked, confused.

"I'm gonna ask him very, very nicely, Bones." His tone was unintentionally short, and Brennan furrowed her brow at him.

"The sarcasm isn't helpful."

Before Booth could reply, Hodgins interrupted, looking excited.

"I found Spodoptera, Ornithogalli, and Tetranychus Urticae on the suspect's shoe was well as on the victim. I also found Notonectidae and Corixidae. It's aquatic fauna typically found in and around ponds and streams."

"There are no ponds or streams at the burial site," Brennan observed.

"Yeah, and here's the kicker. There was also evidence of genetic material found from a Franklinia Alatamaha on his shoe." Hodgins eyes were practically glazed with his enthusiasm, and it seemed to irritate Booth even more.

"You're kidding. I'm in shock. Frankie Alabama, you don't say?"

"Did you hear what I said about sarcasm?" Brennan asked testily. Hodgins seemed unfazed and continued to explain his findings.

"It's a rare flowering plant that hasn't been seen in the wild since 1800. The only known specimen in this area outside a specialized botanical garden was given to Senator Alan Corman as a gift. Oh, I _love_ going after senators," he said with barely concealed glee.

"Whoa, just simmer down there. We're gonna check out the botanical garden first," Booth told him.

"Fine. It's at the White House." The smirk on Hodgins' face would have been comical if Booth had been in a better mood. Brennan watched his frustrations play across his face in concern.

"Hodgins, give us a minute please? Get ready to go," Brennan requested. She pulled Booth into her office by his arm and was thankful that the blinds were still closed from her previous time there that morning. She closed the door and rounded on her partner.

"What's going on with you? You're not usually this irate or sarcastic. Are you okay?"

Booth's expression became contrite, and he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.

"I'm sorry, Bones. I'm just pissed at how this day has gone, I guess. Some low-life gang used us for target practice, the suspect got away, we now have _two_ probable murders, and Hodgins is getting on my last nerve. I just… I want this case solved, and I want to be sure you're not put in danger again."

She stepped closer to him and took both of his hands in hers, wishing they were truly alone so that she could wrap her arms around him.

"We're both okay, Booth. And we _will_ catch this guy."

Booth looked into her eyes and was unable to find even the tiniest shred of doubt. He smiled proudly at her.

"You sound pretty sure of that," he said softly.

"I _am_ sure. Because it's what we do. And we are damn good at it," she told him with a smile, using the exact words of encouragement he'd given her during the Maggie Schilling case. Booth remembered too, and he wished more than anything that he could pull her into his arms for a kiss.

Unfortunately at that moment, Hodgins knocked and entered without waiting for permission. He announced that he was ready to go, and Booth helped his partner out of her lab coat before following them out of her office.

"Shotgun!" Hodgins cried out as they approached the parking structure. Brennan didn't pay him any mind, settling into the passenger seat without so much as looking at him. Booth wondered if she even know what 'shotgun' meant, and the thought made him smile.

"I _called_ shotgun. What does it mean to a society when the _niceties_ are no longer observed?"

Booth glanced quickly at him in the rearview, then smiled at Brennan fondly.

"Too bad. That's Bones' seat."

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Booth probably should have predicted that the botanical garden would be a waste of their time. _Of course_ it was a senator's property they needed to search. Because that's just the way his luck was going today. He sighed as he thought of the last case they'd worked involving a senator and hoped fervently that his girlfriend wouldn't shoot anyone this time. He had a feeling that something like that would completely destroy the goodwill they'd received from Cullen.

In contrast to Senator Bethlehem, however, Senator Corman seemed perfectly willing to cooperate with their investigation, as did his wife and son. They gave Hodgins permission to look for the corroborating evidence they needed while Booth and Brennan flashed Angela's sketch to the senator's son and house manager. The son, Logan, identified their suspect as one Jose Vargas, a man who sometimes worked there as a gardener.

Hodgins came back into view then, announcing that he'd found what he was looking for. Brennan took a closer look and borrowed a trowel from the staff, squatting down to carefully unearth another set of remains. She looked at Booth and spoke with certainty.

"Looks like we found the second body."

This set of remains was more decomposed than the woman had been, and she could tell very quickly that it was a Hispanic male who had been quite a bit older than the first victim they'd found. Booth called for the forensics team, and they waited until the remains had been packed up.

While Booth tracked down information on Jose Vargas, the squints analyzed the newfound skeleton. Zack noted the same markers for age and sex that Brennan had seen in the field, and Hodgins put the time of death six months to a year before that of the young woman.

"We've assembled the rosary found on the young woman," said Goodman, walking onto the platform. "The carving of fire in the centerpiece is an archetypal symbol found at an area of El Salvador since the Chaparrastique volcano erupted in 1787."

"So this might indicate where the female victim's from?" Brennan asked, vaguely recalling the name of the volcano he'd given.

"Yeah, a village called Milagro de la Paz in the southeast part of the country."

Brennan felt a chill wash over her at his words.

"I was there three years ago, identifying victims of the death squads." Brennan was stunned by the coincidence. _What were the odds?_ If she'd felt more like herself, she would've asked Zack to calculate them for the fun of it. She was pulled back to her surroundings by Angela's approach.

"I finished the sketch of the woman," she said, showing Brennan a pretty, smiling young woman. "She was pregnant, starting over in a new country. So I gave her a smile. Made her look hopeful."

"Thanks, Angela," Brennan replied, not quite meeting her friend's eyes. She instructed Zack to get the bones cleaned so they could determine cause of death, but he told her that he may have already found it. He showed her a bullet that he'd found lodged in the pelvis.

"Looks like steel core, copper jacket."

"Military issue," said Hodgins, coming to stand behind them. "Those are the kinds of weapons gangs like."

Brennan set her jaw in disgust. "They escape from the death squads and end up being killed by the same weapon they were running from."

She couldn't help but contemplate the odds once again, disturbed by injustice of it.

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Booth managed to get an address for Jose Vargas, and he picked Brennan up on the way to check it out. He could tell that she was still stressed, presumably about the case, and again he felt the desire to simply be done with the whole mess. She was hurting, so he was too.

They found Jose's wife hiding in a sort of make-shift panic room, trying to keep her infant son quiet. The woman looked utterly terrified, and Brennan sought to reassure her immediately. She understood the logic behind her fear. Booth did not.

"Tell her we're calling immigration. Tell her we'll get to Jose," he instructed her angrily. _Dammit, he just wanted this to be finished._

"No!" Her vehemence surprised him. "She's lived with terror and intimidation her whole life. I'm not gonna add to it."

"Bones, you're acting like I'm gonna hurt her or something. I was just trying to get a little information," he said, fighting to temper the antagonism in his voice.

"I'm asking you, as a _favor_ , not to make me do this. To _scare_ her. _Please_?" Brennan was pleading with him now, and he saw the vulnerability in her tear-filled eyes. His anger evaporated and was replaced immediately by guilt and concern. He nodded and put an arm around her shoulders to lead her back to the SUV, hearing her say a quick and quiet ' _Lo Siento'_ in the woman's direction.

When they made it back to the SUV, he pulled her into his arms before she could open her door. Brennan returned his embrace and savored the instant comfort it provided.

"I'm sorry," he said softly into her hair. Booth felt like an idiot. He had acted like the men who had held her hostage-scaring a woman to get what he wanted. He was disgusted with himself, and he felt his heart clench at the thought of what she might be thinking. "I'm so sorry, Bones. I wasn't in my right mind for a minute."

She nodded but was silent for a few moments before replying.

"They were all from the same village I visited in El Salvador."

Booth pulled back slightly to see her face and saw that her eyes were brimming again. He pressed his lips to her forehead and said a quick prayer of thanks that she had survived her time there. The thought that she could so easily have left the world before she'd entered his felt like a fist clenching around his heart. He held her for several more minutes, both of them completely ignoring their surroundings. Cars sped by, people stared as they passed, and still he held her, murmuring wordlessly into her ear and calming her with his voice, his scent, and his embrace.

Eventually, she pulled away, sniffling a bit. She looked into his eyes and saw nothing but fierce love and compassion, and she gave him a watery smile.

"I'm sorry for being so emotional. It's not like me," she said awkwardly. Booth smiled back at her and stroked her cheek softly.

"You don't ever have to apologize for that, Bones."

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 **Next chapter will be the end of the MM case, Peter's hearing, and another Oops. hehe.**

 **You know what to do! :)**


	16. Chapter 16

**Since it's Sunday, I'm posting a bit earlier than usual. Tuesday's chapter will be normal time though. I think you'll all like this chapter; I know I enjoyed writing it. Thank you once again for all of the wonderful feedback. Between reviews, PMs, and Twitter my head is nearly big enough for a cocky belt buckle of my own! :)**

 **Just a couple of things. I did some fact-finding when trying to figure out what Peter could reasonably get away with as far as a sentence, and I hope it doesn't seem unrealistic. As for the reactions of the judge, I know that these sorts of politics exist in small towns like the one where I was raised. I would think that in a place like DC it wouldn't be any better. If anyone knows differently, let me know. I may not change it for the purposes of this story, but I'm always eager to learn.**

 **There is a poll up on my profile page about chapter length, and I'd appreciate the feedback. I'll explain more in my bio.**

 **Also, some of you may have seen my tweet about sequel planning. Yesterday I got a wild idea that might actually work best as a** ** _THIRD_** **part. I haven't decided what way to go with it yet (Super AU end of season 2 or something set in season 3). If you have an opinion, lay it on me. How I write this first story won't really change either way, so there's time.**

 **Enjoy and review! :)**

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Chapter 16

For the second time since they'd become partners, Brennan woke up screaming. This time Booth didn't have to race to her side from the guest bedroom, though. He had gathered her against his chest before her screams had even subsided, and she woke to the scent of him filling her lungs. Her ears were filled with the sound of his voice, calming her heart rate and telling her that she was safe.

Once her breathing had slowed, she realized that she was clutching him so hard she might actually be hurting him. She eased her grip immediately and wiped her traitorous tears. The last thing she wanted was to give him the impression that she couldn't handle this case. Brennan knew that it was causing him more stress than usual too, and she noticed that he was holding her just as tightly. But it wasn't uncomfortable.

It was exactly what she needed. It was home.

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The following morning came with a surprise: a badly beaten Jose Vargas had been tossed from a moving vehicle with a note pinned to his chest: _Special delivery for Agent Seeley Booth, FBI._

"I convinced the leader of the Mara Muerte to bring Jose in for questioning," Booth told his partner with a grim expression. "This wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

They were at the hospital waiting to speak to the man, and a doctor approached them to give a summary of his condition. Booth played a watered down version of his 'bad cop' routine, but it was Brennan who was able to obtain new information. The victims had been Jose's father and sister, and he gave them their names: Maria and Augustine Duarte. He flat out refused to give them any more information, and Brennan could tell that the man was only trying to protect the family he still had. As frustrating as it was, she understood his logic.

The squints had determined the true cause of death for Augustine to be metastatic carcinoma. The bullet they'd found embedded in his pelvis had been an old injury, most likely sustained in El Salvador.

As they left the hospital, Booth's phone rang. Roberto Ortez was waiting to be questioned. They were both preoccupied with their own thoughts on the ride to the Hoover, but Booth stopped her before opening the door to the interrogation room, speaking to her quietly.

"Listen, Bones, this guy heads one of the most brutal gangs in the country. Follow my lead, okay?" She nodded and followed him into the room. Brennan knew exactly what this man was, but she appreciated his concern.

Even sitting across from him made her feel tainted… dirty. His accent was nearly identical to that of the man who had threatened her life for three days, and the sound of his voice sickened her.

"Jose's sister hated him," he told them arrogantly.

"Hated him, why?" Booth asked.

"She didn't approve of his associations."

"You mean associations like the leader of one of the most murderous street gangs in the country?" Brennan asked derisively. Booth cut in quickly.

"Look, if she hated Jose so much, why was he moving her body?"

"Her burial site was threatened. He wanted to move her to a better place." He looked at Brennan, eyeing her beautiful features and ignoring the disgust written on them. "Real family guy, you know? I'm not the leader of the whole gang. Just the DC chapter."

Brennan's eyes flickered to Booth momentarily, but she refused to give Ortez the satisfaction of thinking he'd gotten to her.

"You shot at us so Jose could have a chance to get away?" Booth asked.

"The Mara Muerte takes care of its own. Even a throwaway like Jose."

"Can I ask you something?" Brennan said, leaning forward slightly.

"Go ahead."

"Jose's all beaten up, so he won't tell us anything. But _you_ , you don't even ask for a lawyer, but you hardly stop talking."

"Bones…" Booth's tone carried a warning. _What happened to following my lead? This isn't the kind of guy who should be baited._

"I'm the boss, lady, ok? Jose's a sobrenado. That baboso is not as smart as me."

"You intimidate him into silence, but you can walk in here to the FBI, say whatever you want, and walk away like you own the place?"

Booth wished he could kick her under the table without the gang leader knowing.

"That's right," the man said

"Look, all I need to know is who would have the guts to kill his sister," Booth interjected, attempting to stop his partner from instigating a very dangerous man.

"Who cares, man?"

"Come on, Ortez. The sister of the Mara Muerte… It's the most feared gang in the city."

"She wasn't _my_ sister, man."

"It had to be somebody else in the gang," she told Booth. "Somebody more important than Jose."

"You know what, lady? You think too much." Ortez let his eyes roam her body appreciatively. Brennan felt ill. "Maybe you need a man like me to get your mind off of things. You know what I'm saying? I can be your adoring Salvadoran," he said provocatively, making a kissing gesture in her direction.

Brennan had had enough, and she rose to leave the room, a cold fury taking over her expression. After the door closed behind her, Ortez turned to Booth.

"Look, I don't know killed Jose's sister. But I'll tell you what. Because I like you so much, if I find out who did it, I'll kill him." Ortez smiled repulsively and got up to leave the room. Booth let him go and stood quietly for a few moments to get his bearings.

Ortez found Brennan waiting for an elevator and smiled pompously.

"You been waiting for me? Push that button again and we can go down together, junas."

She eyed him with open contempt.

"You think you can intimidate people into doing what you want?"

"Okay, I'll push it myself." He reached for the elevator button, but Brennan turned suddenly to stand in his way. She found herself hating the thought of this man thinking he had _any_ control over her. He tried to move around her, but Brennan stayed put, even when Ortez got in her face.

"How do you handle someone who isn't afraid of you?"

Booth heard her question from around the corner and walked a little faster.

"Just get out of my way," Ortez told her, aggravated. "I said move your ass, man." Booth rounded the corner just as the man's hand closed on Brennan's arm. He knew what was coming and tried to warn her.

"I wouldn't-"

But Brennan either didn't hear or didn't listen, because her next movement was to slam her fist into Ortez's nose.

"That's gonna hurt in the morning," Booth commented, hoping to distract the man.

"Bitch," he spat, taking a few swings at her. Brennan blocked each one easily and gave him a solid kick for good measure. Ortez collapsed to the ground, and she stepped over him almost casually as the elevator finally opened. Booth had stepped closer and was surprised to see the anxiety had left her face entirely.

"Feel better?"

"Yeah," she told him with a contented smile. "I really do."

Not wanting to discuss where she might be going in front of Ortez, he let the doors close without questioning her. He assumed that she would take a cab back to the Jeffersonian, since they had been carpooling all day as usual. Booth glanced once more at the angry man still prone on the floor and stalked away.

When he got to his office, he sat at his desk and pulled his cell from his pocket. He texted Brennan to check that she had indeed headed to the lab. She replied quickly in the affirmative and said she would let him know if the squints had come up with anything new.

He texted Angela next. He wasn't quite sure it was the right thing to do, but it would be a while before he could get over to the lab. Cullen had wanted an update after the interview with Ortez. He asked Angela to check on her when she got into the lab, just to make sure she was okay. Angela agreed immediately but wanted to know why.

' _She just beat up the leader of the Mara Muerte.'_

Booth didn't get a reply, and he knew that Angela was probably just as disturbed as he was. Maybe she could talk some sense into his girlfriend and save him the discomfort of having to do it later when they were alone.

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Angela had indeed been extremely disturbed when she'd read his message, and she wasted no time in asking Brennan if it was true.

"You beat up a gang leader?"

"Booth told you that?" Brennan's expression was almost arrogant. She was still riding her high just a little bit.

"You _did_ ," she accused, sitting down on the other side of Brennan's desk. "You got into a fight with a gangbanger." Even Brennan couldn't miss the outrage in her friend's tone and features.

"You're mad at me?"

"The guy's a killer, Brennan."

"Angela, relax. We were in the FBI building."

The conversation felt almost surreal to Angela. _How could Brennan not realize the magnitude of her actions?_

"Look, I know you're all about self-reliance and fighting your own battles and standing up for yourself, but now… as your friend, and knowing how much you hate psychology… You need therapy."

Brennan was startled by her words. "I'm sorry I upset you. It's just that I've dealt with him before."

"With who?"

"People who get what they want through fear. Gangbangers, members of death squads…"

"I know it's psychology again, but you said ' _him,'_ like one guy."

"I didn't mean Ortez specifically. I meant people like him." Brennan took a deep breath, considering whether or not her sensitive friend could really handle what she was about to say. The echo of her therapy recommendation made the decision for her. Brennan gave a rough outline of what happened to her in El Salvador, and Angela was predictably upset. "I promised myself that if I ever had the chance, I'd get even. That doesn't mean I need _therapy_."

Angela could do little more than nod as she processed the information with tearful eyes, and Hodgins interrupted them scarcely a minute later. He had identified the wood in Maria Duarte's skull as cumuru.

Baffled, Angela asked, "What is made out of cumuru?"

"Very expensive furniture," Hodgins answered. Brennan's eyes lit up.

" _Senatorially_ expensive?"

"Most definitely."

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"Did Angela talk to you?" Booth asked hesitantly. They were in the SUV, headed toward Senator Corman's home to check for the presence of cumuru furniture.

"Yes. Did you tell her to yell at me?" Her expression was even, but he thought he heard resignation in her tone.

"No, it wasn't like that. I just asked her to check on you to make sure you were okay since we couldn't really talk before you left the Hoover. She asked why, so I told her." Booth eyed her cautiously, hoping that she wasn't actually angry with him.

"Okay," she replied easily.

"That's it? What did Angela say to you?"

"I explained why I did it, and she didn't have much to say after that."

"You mean you told her about El Salvador?" Booth asked, clarifying. If he hadn't known her as well as he did, he'd have been surprised that Angela hadn't already known.

"Yes. And then Hodgins came to tell us about the cumuru, so the conversation was over after that."

"Oh. Okay, well… I hope you don't think I overstepped a boundary or something. I was just worried about you." He reached over to take her hand, feeling slightly better when she squeezed it back and entwined their fingers.

"That's unnecessary, but I do understand that your alpha male tendencies prevent you from being rational about things like this. So don't worry about it." Booth couldn't determine whether or not she was as serious as she seemed to be, but he decided to let it go since they were pulling into the Cormans' bricked driveway.

Neither the Senator nor his wife recognized Angela's sketch of Maria Duarte, but their house manager, Hector, identified her as a someone who used to work there as a maid. He claimed that she had papers, which Booth countered had most likely been fake. The Senator defended his employee, and Brennan asked Hector what had happened to the young woman. He insisted that she had simply stopped showing up for work, but Booth had been tossing around another idea in his head.

"Did she interact with anyone besides Jose?"

"I don't know anything about that kind of thing," Hector answered with an uneasy chuckle.

"What kind of thing, Hector?"

"I don't know anything."

"What do you mean, Hector?" Corman asked. Booth pounced on the opportunity.

"Was Maria involved with the Senator?"

"What?! Of course not!"

"No," Hector said quickly. "No, not the Senator." Mrs. Corman spoke up then.

"Well tell the truth, Hector. This is the FBI."

"Logan. She was involved with Logan," Hector admitted. The couple looked shocked, and Brennan struggled to catch up.

"What kind of _involved_?" A meaningful look from Booth clarified her confusion, and they were told that they could speak to Logan in his room.

The young man appeared genuinely shocked to hear that his former lover was dead. He processed the information distractedly while Booth tried to get more information from him. But Booth was distracted as well when his partner climbed onto the bed and stood up next to the long post of the footboard.

She asked Logan how long he'd had the bed and what it was made of. _Cumuru. Surprise._ Brennan examined the top of the finials carefully and found dried blood and skin. Logan agreed to come with them to answer more questions, but his parents did insist upon a lawyer.

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It didn't take long for Booth to feel certain that the kid had _not_ killed Maria. He was stunned and horrified at the news that she had been pregnant and stated immediately that he was the father. Booth let him leave with a request for a phone call should Logan happen to recall anything else that might be important.

Brennan allowed Booth to coax her into lunch at Wong Foo's where he studiously ignored the perceptive gaze of his friend. If Sid could tell what you wanted to eat simply by looking at you, there was no chance that he couldn't see how their relationship had changed. They'd gotten take out from the restaurant since they'd begun a relationship, but this was the first time they were actually eating beneath Sid's observant eye.

Booth considered what they must look like to an outsider. Brennan sat close enough to him at the bar that nearly the whole length of their bodies was touching. They leaned their heads very close together as they talked. She traded her meat for his vegetables without a word of warning or inquiry. He supposed it would have been obvious to anyone who _really_ watched them, and Booth was surprised in that moment that no one else seemed to have noticed at this point. Brennan may have thought Hodgins knew about them, but Booth wasn't sure the man had that much self-control not to have said anything to them at all.

He signalled his friend for the bill once they'd finished, but Sid merely shook his head and smiled broadly.

"It's on me today, lovebirds."

Brennan was startled and glanced at Booth in alarm, unsure what to do. But he simply grinned back at Sid and thanked him. He put his hand to Brennan's lower back as they walked to the SUV, feeling somehow lighter than he had all day. Booth considered what that meant and decided to bring it up once they were on the road.

"How do you feel about the whole secrecy thing at this point?"

Brennan raised her brows and considered her response for a few moments.

"Well, since Cullen knows and has given his approval, I suppose it's not strictly necessary anymore. And while our other reasons for wanting to keep it private do still exist, I think that our affection for one another is obvious enough that no one would be truly shocked now. Even Angela."

"So does that mean you're ready to tell people?" Booth asked, trying to make sure he understood her thought process. Brennan made a little face of discomfort.

"I would rather not make a big announcement, if that's what you're asking. Perhaps we could simply confirm for Angela what she thinks she knows and let things unfold naturally from there. Though we should probably talk to Goodman directly, as a professional courtesy."

Booth smiled at her logic. He wasn't feeling much like making a formal announcement about it either. The less fuss, the sooner the novelty of gossip about them would dissipate.

"I agree, Bones. We'll tell her after this case is done. Or you can." Brennan nodded in agreement.

"Perhaps we could wait til after the hearing actually. I'd like to have it behind us before we start having to answer questions about our relationship."

"That sounds good," he said, picturing himself surrounded by enthusiastic squints and itching for his side arm. "But hey, we don't have to answer anyone's questions unless we want to, okay? What's between us is ours."

She gave him a smile that made his breath catch in his throat, and as soon as they had pulled to a stop in the Jeffersonian's parking structure, she leaned over to kiss him soundly. Booth placed a warm hand on her thigh, and she felt her skin tingle in response. The kiss deepened, their tongues sparring and their hands exploring. Security cameras were the absolute last thing on either of their minds until they finally broke apart, desperate for oxygen.

Brennan sighed in resignation as they exited the vehicle, wishing very much that they could climb back in and make good use of his oversized SUV. Her eyes glazed at the thought, and Booth had to say her name twice to get her attention.

"Sorry, what?"

"I'd ask what's on your mind, but it's pretty much written all over your face," he told her, his charm smile firmly in place. She turned to him, eyes sparkling.

"Actually I was thinking that perhaps it might be easier to just let the security team make an announcement."

Booth recalled the presence of the parking garage cameras and flushed in embarrassment. His face colored even more as they passed the first watchman. The man's smug expression said it all.

Their secret wasn't much of a _secret_.

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Moments after they entered through the glass doors, Booth got a phone call from the prosecutor they'd met with. Mr. West had news on the plea deal. Brennan's first priority was to help Angela determine how Maria had been killed, however, so she left him in her office, speaking to the man in irate tones. She decided she would worry about whatever was making him angry later. Right now, she really wanted to get this murder solved.

It didn't take long for Brennan's logic combined with Angela's technology to successfully recreate the circumstances of young woman's death. Someone had pulled her from a ladder as she cleaned the light fixture, and in the process of falling, she had hit her head on the bedpost. The math involved told them that they were looking for a full grown man, and Brennan thanked Angela before returning to her office.

Booth had ended his call, and she found him perched on the edge of her couch, looking at the floor.

"Bad news?" Brennan asked him intuitively.

"Well… not good news," he told her, his eyes searching her face. "Peter has agreed to take the plea bargain. But the sentence isn't nearly enough, as far as I'm concerned."

"What is it?"

"Four months in prison with credit for time served since his last arrest. Three years of probation, mandatory anger management therapy, and a no-contact restraining order."

"You're saying he'll be locked up for less than three months?" Brennan was shocked. That would put his release sometime around mid-April, she realized. Booth was right; it wasn't enough. But now wasn't the time. "Booth, let's talk about this later, okay? Angela and I figured out what happened to Maria, and it has nothing to do with a gang. An adult pulled her from a ladder while she was cleaning in Logan's room."

"Well, then there are really only a few people it could have been." Booth was thankful for a distraction from his worried thoughts.

"Exactly. If I can just have them re-enact the scenario, I'll be able to tell who it was."

"Let's go, then," he agreed, pressing his fingertips to the small of her back as they left. She was right. They'd worry about the hearing later.

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It took little time to determine that Hector was the catalyst of Maria's accident. He hadn't meant to injure her, and since she'd remained conscious for a while after the impact, he'd given her money to seek medical treatment. But what Hector had failed to consider was that a trip to an emergency room would have put her at risk for deportation. Maria chose not to take that risk, and she had died later from the brain bleed.

Both Brennan and Booth were relieved that the case was solved, and Brennan arranged for both Maria and Augustine Duarte to be buried properly with a Catholic graveside service. Booth was touched when she explained what she wanted to do and her reasons, and he was struck yet again by what an incredible woman she was. For someone who didn't think she was a 'heart person,' Brennan certainly acted with hers quite a bit.

The funeral was scheduled for the afternoon following Hector's arrest, one day before Peter's hearing. Booth spent the morning of the service in his office with a sizeable stack of paperwork, and he was leaving to pick up Brennan for lunch when an agent stopped him with a message from the Gang Task Force Unit.

Mara Muerte had put a hit on his 'lady scientist.' His partner. His girlfriend. His _Bones_.

Lunch was forgotten with a quick text to Brennan that he would meet her at the cemetery later instead, and he borrowed a stakeout car from the motor pool before heading back to Little Salvador. Booth struggled to keep his cool as he drove the now-familiar route, but inside he was livid. He was shaking with fury, gripping the steering wheel so hard that his hands ached.

For a few hours, he simply sat in the vehicle, watching. Ortez thought he ran this neighborhood; he would turn up eventually. Booth had managed to temper his breathing at least to a steady rhythm, even if it was a little fast. He kept an eye on the time and realized he would probably be late for the funeral. He knew Brennan would be upset with him for that, but there was no way he could simply let this lie. Delaying could cost Brennan her life, and that was completely unacceptable.

When Booth finally spotted his quarry striding off the main road and down an alleyway, he grabbed his gun and followed without hesitation. Utilizing the stealth he had learned as a sniper, Booth got close enough to Ortez to push him forcefully into an empty doorway and out of sight of the main road. He turned the man around and got right in his face.

"Are you crazy?" Ortez shouted. "This is _my_ neighborhood."

"You put a hit on my partner?" Booth asked him threateningly.

"She's not FBI." The scumbag said the words as though they meant that Booth shouldn't trouble himself over it. His rage mounted, and Booth punched him squarely in the face before gripping his throat and pinning him against the wall.

He put his gun to the man's neck and his face within inches of the gang leader.

"I never said anything about FBI. She's my _partner_ , ese? And if anything happens to her, I will find you, and I will kill you. _I won't think twice._ " His voice was menacing and deadly, but the expression on Ortez's face was unconvinced. "Come here, look in my eye," Booth ordered, forcing the business end of his Glock into the man's mouth. He cocked it, and Ortez's eyes widened in alarm. "Look at my face. If _anything_ happens to her, I will kill you," he repeated. "This is between you and me. Nobody sees. Nobody knows. You got nothing to prove, understand? _You understand?"_

Ortez finally nodded and gave a sort of muffled "Yeah" around the gun in his mouth.

"Yeah, I thought so. Okay, now if you don't mind, I'll leave first cause I got somewhere I have to be." Booth backed off the man and turned to leave, but he quickly turned back again and pointed his weapon right at the man's forehead. Ortez still didn't move, and Booth walked away for real, returning to his vehicle.

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As he sped toward the cemetery, he felt remarkably calm. Judging by the look on Ortez's face, Booth thought he might have actually pissed himself. The thought made him smile just a little. He glanced at the clock on the dash, seeing that he was indeed late for the funeral service, but he felt very little remorse. This had been more important.

 _Though Bones may not see it that way,_ he thought, catching sight of her expression when he neared the group still milling around after the service. Angela stood nearest to him, eyeing him speculatively.

"Am I in trouble?" Booth asked her quietly, still watching Brennan.

"You're late for a funeral; of course you're in trouble."

"Sorry," he told Brennan as she joined them. "I apologize, I… Everything okay here?"

"Where were you?" He winced at her expression as she spoke. _Yup, definitely mad_.

"I had something to do."

"More important than a funeral?"

"I thought so at the time," he replied, giving her a tiny smile that she didn't return. He followed Brennan and Angela back to their car, whispering into his partner's ear that he would meet her back at her place. They had agreed to take the rest of the day off to prepare themselves for tomorrow's court proceedings. Though she still looked displeased, she nodded in agreement, and Booth felt optimistic.

Angela drove her home, and Booth made a quick stop at the Hoover to return the hunk of junk he'd thought would be least likely to stand out in Little Salvador. Now back in his usual vehicle, he headed for Brennan's apartment. Booth called a friend who worked the Gang Task Force Unit and asked the guy to let him know if they heard anything else pertaining to his partner. The man, Agent Watts, surprised him with the news that the hit had already been canceled, though no one seemed to know why. Watts had been with Booth at Quantico and knew him well enough to assume that he'd done _something_ to get Mara Muerte off Brennan's back. When his friend asked what had gone down, Booth merely said that he'd had a friendly discussion with Ortez and had appealed to his better nature. Watts laughed, unfooled, but let it go.

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By the time Booth knocked on Brennan's door, she was cooking dinner. She gave him a tiny smile as she let him in, and he knew he was nearly forgiven. But as he pulled her into a hug, what he failed to see was the determination in her eyes. If he thought he was going to get off without giving her an explanation, he was sorely mistaken.

She didn't bring it up at first, deciding instead to discuss the hearing as she put dinner in the oven and set a timer. Brennan asked typical female questions like what she should wear, wondering aloud if she should dress similarly to how she had been advised by the insufferable jury consultant on the Maggie Schilling case. Booth assured her that her wardrobe wouldn't be a factor and that she should wear whatever she wanted.

Over dinner, they discussed Parker and the fact that Rebecca had canceled his next weekend with Booth, without agreeing to reschedule. Brennan was dismayed at the news and even more troubled at Booth's expression as he told her. She made a mental note to look at her work calendar the following day to determine when the boy's next scheduled visit should be. One way or another, things with Rebecca would eventually come to a head, and when that time came, Brennan wanted to offer as much support as possible.

They sat at the coffee table with their paperwork after the kitchen had been cleaned. It was a comfortable routine, and Booth realized that they had managed to blend their personal and professional lives with very little trouble at all. One moment they washed and dried dishes like a domestic couple; the next they signed case notes and organized documentation for a murder trial. The transition was seamless and natural.

That was, of course, until she filed the last of the paperwork away and turned the conversation back to what was _really_ on her mind.

"Booth," she said quietly, gaining his attention immediately. "Where were you today?" Her gaze searched his features for an indication of what to expect, but all she found there was guilt. _For missing the funeral? For disappointing her? Or for something else?_ He remained silent and looked like he might be trying to come up with the right words to answer her question.

"I had an important errand to run that couldn't wait. I'd hoped to make it on time, but it took longer than I expected." _Please let that be the end of it,_ he pleaded silently.

"You said it was more important than the funeral, or that at least you thought so at the time."

"Yes, it was."

"So what was it?"

Booth sighed, trying in vain to think his way out of this one. He knew for certain that she would be upset at what he'd done. She'd go off on him about his alpha-male posturing and how she can take care of herself perfectly fine. And he'd let her say it. But it wouldn't change his mind in the slightest about the validity of his actions.

"An agent stopped me on my way out this morning when I was leaving to pick you up for lunch," he began. "He had a message from the Gang Task Force Unit that Mara Muerte had put a hit on you."

Brennan paled noticeably, and her eyes widened.

"A hit? Ortez wants me dead for… what, wounding his pride?" Her tone was incredulous but lacked a note of genuine surprise. She knew how these people operated. It wasn't that much of a leap.

"Yeah, pretty much. I mean, you did break the guy's nose." Brennan nodded thoughtfully but needed further clarification.

"So… what does that have to do with the reason you were late?"

Booth looked away uncomfortably, and fidgeted with his lighter. Brennan recognized the action as something he did when he was either nervous or stalling. Or both.

"Booth…"

"I took care of it. The hit was canceled." There was a finality in the words that concerned her, and she pressed him to elaborate.

"Exactly what does that mean? What did you do?"

"I drove out there to find Ortez, and I convinced him to call off the hit."

" _How?"_

"I… I made it very clear that if something happened to you, I would find him and kill him without thinking twice."

Brennan's eyes were huge, and she forced herself to ask her next question, not entirely certain she wanted to hear the answer.

"And just _how_ exactly did you make it 'very clear?'" He gritted his teeth and eyed her warily. _Damn, she just wasn't going to let this go._

"I… pushed him against a wall and… put my gun in his mouth. And again to his forehead before I walked away."

Brennan's mouth gaped wordlessly, and an icy wave of fear ran through her body. Before she could stop them, tears were filling her eyes and streaming down her cheeks, and she stood up to put some space between them. She was angry and terrified at the same time. Images of what could have happened to him today flooded her mind, and it occurred to her that there could very well be a hit on _him_ now. It was with that thought that the anger took precedence, and he unfortunately picked that moment to get up from the couch and come to stand in front of her.

"Bones, it's okay. Nothing else happened," he told her in an attempt to soothe. Seeing her cry was like having his heart ripped out. It was physically painful. But her next move was unexpected. She pushed forcefully against his chest, causing him to stagger backward.

"You had _no business_ putting yourself at that kind of risk!" Brennan shouted at him through her tears, and Booth blinked in shock. "What if he hadn't been alone? What if you'd been killed? _What happens to Parker if you get yourself killed by a street gang, Booth?_ You're going to risk letting him grow up without his father just so you can play the knight in shiny... _whatever?!_ "

He corrected the phrase in his mind but wisely refrained from doing so out loud. She took a breath to try to get control of her tears, and he took advantage of her temporary silence.

"And what would happen to _me_ if _you_ died, huh?" He fought to keep his voice level, even as she was shaking her head in denial. "There isn't a thing in this world I wouldn't do for you, Temperance." Brennan met his eyes at the use of her given name and was suddenly speechless.

Booth ran a hand through his hair anxiously before continuing.

"You know, when you love someone, maybe you don't think clearly all the time. Maybe being in love robs you of your sanity just a little bit. But I got confirmation within hours that the hit was called off, and now I can sleep tonight knowing that there's not some lunatic gangbanger with his gun aimed at you. I don't regret what I did, and I'd do it again. I'll do whatever it takes to keep you safe. And you can't tell me that you would've done any less for me; I know better."

Brennan sighed, feeling the fight go out of her. _He was right, damn it._ If it had been the other way around, and she'd had a way to fix it, she wouldn't have hesitated. Even if it meant putting her life in danger for his. How could she expect any less from him? Her tears had subsided, and she gazed at him through puffy eyes.

"Bones," he said weakly, pleading. She understood what he wanted and walked into his embrace with a sigh. His arms encircled her instantly, and he held her tightly to his chest, leaning down to press his lips to her temple.

"Booth…" she said, her voice slightly muffled against his shirt. "Considering the kind of work we do, something like this is bound to come up again."

"Well, you probably should try not to beat the hell out of any more gang leaders," he told her lightly. She could hear the amusement in his voice and smiled begrudgingly.

"Probably. But there will be other people, other ways that they may try to hurt one or both of us. And I need to know that next time we'll talk about it _before_ you do something dangerous."

"And face our problems together," he agreed. She nodded, pleased that he understood. "I can agree to that Bones. I never meant to upset you or make you feel like I didn't trust you with the information. It wasn't like that. I was just… so angry I guess. So pissed off at even the _thought_ that someone like him was trying to take you away from me. I wanted to deal with him personally, to make sure that he and every other lowlife thug in this town knows that I don't fuck around when it comes to you. If someone hurts you, they'll have me to answer to."

Brennan tilted her head in chagrin. "You can't let your anger control you like that, Booth. It keeps you from thinking clearly, and that's when things can get dangerous. If something like this happens again, you _have_ to talk to me."

Booth remained silent for a moment, considering her words. Anger had always been an issue for him. His temper was sometimes disturbingly short, and though he would never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it, he was still concerned by how easily he was triggered. That part reminded him of his father, and he hated the thought of it.

She watched the emotions play on his features. Thoughtful, to resigned, to ashamed.

"What's wrong, Booth?" She hated to see that expression nearly as much as he hated to see her tears.

"Nothing, Bones," he lied, not wanting to worry that he was anything like his bastard of father. "I agree with what you said. It's not too much to ask, and I swear that the next time I'm feeling angry like that I'll talk to you about it first." His eyes were honest and affectionate. And while she knew that he had more on his mind than what they'd discussed, she also knew that he would tell her when he was ready.

"Let's go to bed. Tomorrow may be a difficult day, and we both need to get as much rest as we can," she told him. He nodded and kissed her softly, glad the confrontation had passed.

Booth held her the entire night as she slept, saying prayers of thanks that she was there, safe and in his arms. He'd meant it when he'd told her that he would do anything for her. He would gladly step in front of a bullet or beat the hell out of anyone who threatened her if that's what it took to keep her safe.

And although he'd been angry earlier that day, he recognized that at this moment, while she slept peacefully in his arms, his devotion had nothing to do with anger but rather with love.

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Brennan sat with Booth in the back of the courtroom the next morning, observing the proceedings with skepticism. Judge Grant shot them meaningful looks now and then, and when he spoke of the evidence, his words made it sound as though Brennan was not a credible witness to her own attack.

She was startled that a man who didn't know her could hold such animosity toward her, and it made her uncomfortable. Brennan also felt relieved that there wouldn't be a trial to suffer through. This judge was clearly biased against her. She had asked West if claiming judicial bias was a viable option to get Peter a longer prison term, but he had answered in the negative. The political ramifications of taking that kind of action would likely put many of the other judges against them as well.

So it was with begrudging resignation that she approved the terms of the plea bargain as Booth had explained them to her. Brennan glanced at him briefly and found that while she had been studying Judge Grant, Booth was studying Peter.

 _Something isn't right here_ , Booth thought as he observed Brennan's ex. He seemed to be ignoring Brennan entirely, and considering the level of the man's obsession with her, it was extremely odd behavior. But then the defense attorney moved slightly to reveal Peter's entire frame. He was fidgety and agitated. His breathing was accelerated, and he clenched his jaw and fists convulsively. It was then that Booth realized that Peter was doing all he could not to lash out, and his unease intensified when he saw the defense attorney place a calming hand on Peter's flexed forearm at the mention of Booth's name in regards to evidentiary testimony. Booth was sure that the attorney must have lectured his client to remain calm and quiet. It was obvious that Peter was struggling with those instructions.

Instinctively, Booth squeezed the hand that was encased in his own, and she squeezed back. When the proceedings were finished, they stood at the same time Peter did, and as the bailiff lead him away, he finally looked back at Brennan. They both watched his expression as his eyes flickered down to their joined hands. It was pure, cold rage.

Brennan noticed the fury on Peter's face but hadn't seen the things that Booth had picked up on. Kinesiologist or not, she was really only ever that observant of one person, and it wasn't Peter. As they left the courthouse, Brennan took a cleansing breath.

"I'm glad it's behind us, even if it didn't turn out the way we'd hoped," she told him calmly. Booth nodded but kept silent. He continued to brood in the car, and she could tell that he was troubled. She let him alone with this thoughts until he was ready to talk about them, and it wasn't until they'd made it to the lab and into her office that she'd finally gotten tired of waiting for him to speak. They'd passed Angela, Hodgins, and Zack as they'd entered, so she closed her office door before addressing him.

"What's wrong? Why aren't you happy this is over too?" He turned to her with an expression she could read as easily as if the words were inscribed on his face. "You don't think it _is_ over," she surmised.

Booth nodded and explained what he'd seen while watching Peter.

"The guy was teetering on the edge of losing all self-control, Bones. I know what that looks like. And trust me, if he'd had to sit there any longer, he would've lost it. My gut says this isn't over." Booth stood quite a bit closer to her than usual, and Brennan could practically feel the tension rolling off of his body in waves.

"Well… while I certainly don't think your _stomach_ has the power to predict the future-" Booth rolled his eyes. "-I will admit that after working with you for this long, I'm not inclined to dismiss your concerns out of hand."

"Oh really?" Booth asked, smiling in spite of his acute stress.

"Yes," she grinned back. "But… No matter what happens, I trust your judgment. I know you'll keep me safe," Brennan told him, somehow knowing exactly what he needed to hear. "If Peter does plan to cause more trouble in the future, then the fact that I have you by my side will allow me to continue living my life without worrying about it."

Booth was overwhelmed by the confidence in her words, by her trust in him. Even when just the previous evening she was angry at his 'knight in shiny whatever' behavior, she still had the courage to tell him that she trusted him to keep her safe. It was humbling.

Maybe it was the distraction and agitation he'd struggled with all morning, compounded with the stress of the last case. Or perhaps it was his amazement at her unrelenting faith in him, or simply the sheer overwhelming force of his love for her. Or maybe it was some combination of the above. But without a second thought as to where they were standing or who might be watching through the open blinds, Booth pulled her to him and proceeded to kiss her senseless.

Brennan was stunned by his actions, knowing full well where they were, but only for a brief moment. She responded with equal passion, not caring who saw them or what they might think. They kissed with the kind of abandon they typically only possessed in the brief seconds before they started ripping one another's clothes off.

On the other side of her glass windows, their friends and colleagues watched with a mixture of responses. At first it was merely stunned, open-mouthed silence, but Hodgins recovered first. After all, he'd seen them like that once before. Angela was grinning ear to ear in smug satisfaction that she had been right about them all along. Zack was still in shock, feeling uncomfortable to be staring at them and yet unable to look away. The feeling intensified as he watched Booth's hand grip his mentor's ass and lift her off her feet a little.

When at last they came up for air, they recalled their surroundings with wide eyes and checked hesitantly through the windows to see if anyone had noticed. Brennan chuckled uneasily at the reactions of her co-workers. Angela was doing a sort of victory dance, Hodgins was clapping and smiling wider than she'd ever seen, and Zack seemed to be in an extended state of shock. After a moment, Hodgins clapped him on the back to snap him out of it. He then lead the graduate student away for a more private talk. Angela overheard them, however.

"It doesn't make any sense," Zack mused. "They argue all the time, and they're so different. Dr. Brennan is like me. It doesn't make sense that she would go for someone like Booth."

Hodgins saw through him instantly. Zack seemed to feel that Brennan was the only one in the lab who really understood him. Hodgins also knew that the kid had been nursing a crush for Brennan for quite some time. It seemed that Zack was the only one who hadn't realized just how unrealistic his fantasies were.

"Hey, let's have a guy's night tonight, huh? We'll grab a few drinks… find some ladies who go for that boyish charm of yours?"

Angela shook her head with a smile as they walked away and turned back toward Brennan's office. The makeout session seemed to have concluded- _or at least been postponed_ , Angela thought happily-and she waved adoringly to her friend before returning to her own office.

There would be time to interrogate her later.

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Brennan turned back to look at him with her brows raised almost comically high on her forehead.

"I suppose that's one way to spread the word," she accused him playfully.

The kiss had dispelled every ounce of his tension, and Booth smiled back at her.

"Yeah… that wasn't really my intention, but I guess I got a little carried away," he answered sheepishly.

"A little? For a minute there I thought you were going to put your hand down my pants," she laughed.

His cheeks flooded with color, which made her giggle even harder, and he closed his eyes for a moment to enjoy the rather uncharacteristic sound. She saw his reaction, and her laughter diminished into a sweet smile.

"I love you, Booth."

"I love you too," he said fervently, pulling her into his embrace once more. They stood quietly that way for several moments, relishing the feel of one another, until the sound of a door opening and a deep voice drew their attention.

"Am I to assume that you two have finally figured out what the rest of us have known for months?" Goodman asked with a bit of a smirk.

"If you're asking whether or not Booth and I are having intercourse, then the answer is yes," Brennan answered promptly. Booth sputtered a bit at her blunt delivery.

"What she means is...we're romantically involved," he translated.

"Yes, that's what I meant. Monogamously," she added. Goodman looked rather surprised at her words, having been on the receiving end of several Brennan-style lectures about the social practice she'd once considered to be outdated and unrealistic.

"Uh huh. And I also assume that this development is connected to the rather loud squealing noises coming from Miss Montenegro's office?"

Booth and Brennan both laughed, feeling a little embarrassed.

"Most likely," Brennan replied. Goodman nodded, seeming to take the new development in stride.

"Does the FBI know, Agent Booth?"

"Yeah, Cullen knows. He's fine with it, and we signed disclosure documents"

"Good. Alright then… congratulations, I suppose," he told them with a kind smile. But before he left the room, he turned to speak again. "I hope I can trust you to keep things professional while on the job?"

"Of course, Dr. Goodman. It was only a momentary slip," Brennan assured him.

"Yeah, we've actually been together about a month now, and no one's been any the wiser about it," Booth added quickly. But his cheeks glowed brightly with the lie. The security staff most _definitely_ knew what was going on. Fortunately, the only person in the room who seemed to know that blushing was his tell didn't appear to have noticed.

Goodman was surprised by the information and tried to think back over the past month, searching for details he might have missed. He could think of none. With another warm smile, he left them alone again.

"So… How do you feel?" Booth asked her cautiously.

"Fine," she replied with a slightly furrowed brow. "How am I supposed to feel?"

Booth grinned and pulled her across the room to sit with him on the couch. He curled an arm around her shoulders, and she immediately leaned into him.

"I just meant… are you okay with everyone knowing now? Are you okay with it no longer being just _ours_?"

"Oh… I find that I'm actually fairly relieved. Keeping up the appearance that we were just partners was tedious. I much prefer honesty. And I think that our relationship is well enough established now that fielding questions about it won't be too awkward."

Booth smiled, happy with her response. Though he did think they might need to work on what sorts of things were off limits in conversations with others. Their sex life, for one.

"I agree. I'm glad it's out."

They sat talking for another ten minutes or so before Brennan finally forced herself to get up and get some work done.

"I gotta get back to the office too. Want to meet back at your place for dinner?"

"That sounds appealing," she agreed with a flirtatious smile. "I'm very much looking forward to continuing what we started."

Booth smiled his brilliant smile, and Brennan felt her heart flutter slightly.

"Me too," he answered. "Also, if you have time this weekend, I'd like you to take a little trip with me."

"Really? Where?"

"Not far, nothing that will take more than a day. Just someone I'd like you to meet," he told her. And with a wink, Booth was out the door. "See you tonight."

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 **I bet you can guess who we'll see in the next chapter. Only 4 more days til Bones is back! Should I plan to post that day or push it til the next?**


	17. Chapter 17

**Hello my lovelies! As always thank you so much for the amazing feedback!**

 **This chapter turned out pretty heavy on the dialogue, but I think it worked out better that way. Let me know how I did with writing Pops, please. I hope I did him justice, cause I really love his character. I borrowed some lines from his first appearance on the show, because we didn't get to see him til S5, and this story won't go that far. Hope you enjoy!**

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Chapter 17

"Booth."

He groaned, wanting more sleep. His face was buried in his pillow, but she watched him flex his feet experimentally. _Checking for pain,_ she knew. Judging by the sigh which followed, his feet seemed to be feeling fairly well that day.

"Booth…" Brennan drew out his name this time, but he merely grunted and stayed put. They needed to get moving. He wanted to introduce her to his grandfather, and if they didn't time their departure correctly, they would hit traffic.

"Okay, you stay here, I guess. I'll be in the shower," she told him provocatively. He playfully reached an arm blindly toward her to keep her next to him, but she was too quick. And within two minutes of her closing the shower curtain, he was pulling it back open with look of mock frustration.

"Bones… You know you can't just use that sexy voice right in my ear and then vanish."

"I know," she replied smartly.

They exchanged smiles, and she made room for him to join her. As it usually did, washing turned to other kinds of touching. Booth ran his soapy hands over the smooth skin of her back, snaking around to her abdomen and finally her breasts. She was facing away from him, and the water sprayed directly at her chest. The intimacy of his touch made her shudder, especially when he bent to taste the skin of her neck.

Brennan could feel his arousal pressing into her, and she certainly wanted him. But they were running short on time.

"We need to hurry," she told him, reaching both hands behind his head as the tip of his tongue swept the droplets of water from her skin.

"I'm ready when you are." As he spoke, one of his hands traveled slowly downward to cup her.

"I'm always ready for you."

It was true. He'd never found her otherwise when there intimate. It made Booth's heart race to know that she obviously had as much desire for him as he possessed for her. Brennan whimpered at the feel of his fingers teasing her folds, and she suddenly needed him inside of her more than she needed her next breath.

She turned quickly to face him and seized his lips in a desperate kiss. Their tongues slipped over one another, and he knew without asking what she wanted him to do. Booth placed his hands carefully on her wet skin to lift her, and Brennan found herself instantly trapped between the shower wall and his firm body.

She was still kissing him when he entered her, and delicious sounds that she made were muffled by his lips. He moved within her forcefully, plunging deeply until her screams of release echoed in the tiled bathroom. Booth didn't take long to follow. If they'd had time, he would have drawn it out longer. Made good use of every last drop in her hot water heater. Pleasured her until the steam and multiple orgasms made her dizzy. He'd done it before.

Brennan clung to him tightly as he helped her stand properly again, her knees feeling rather weak. He continued to steal quick kisses from her soft lips, and they washed again before getting out.

"I'm surprised you had the energy for that after our exertions last night," she teased.

"I kind of am too," he admitted with a huge grin, remembering the long hours they'd spent making love after work. They dried off and dressed quickly, eyeing each other hungrily in spite of their recent activities.

Brennan knew exactly which hormones and pheromones caused her bodily reactions to Booth's form. She could recite every step of the process and name every muscle and bone in his body that contributed to her arousal. But more often than not when she was watching him, she couldn't think clearly enough to remember any of it. Particularly now, as he donned his cocky belt buckle and stood in front of the closet bare-chested and deciding what to wear. Her fingers itched to trace the contours of his shoulders all the way down to his hips, but she knew where that would lead. And they really did have to hurry.

Booth was no less affected by watching her. The mere glimpse of her sliding her underwear into place or slipping into a snug pair of jeans was enough to make his mouth water. Knowing what was underneath her clothing day in and day out tended to make the days feel twice as long. She caught him staring while she dried her hair and smiled at his reflection in her bathroom mirror.

Brennan had never been domestic like this with anyone, and she got the impression that Booth hadn't either. She enjoyed it more than she had expected, but she had a feeling that had more to do with him than with their actual activities. She assumed that eventually they would combine their belongings into one home, but Brennan wasn't particularly troubled as to when that might happen. Whether they stayed at his place or hers didn't matter if they were together.

"You ready to go? We can grab coffee and some bagels on the way."

"Yes, I just need to find my keys. They're not where I usually put them." She milled around the room checking in the obvious places, but Booth spotted them first. They had fallen down behind the long counter that served as a breakfast bar as well as a foyer table.

"Found them!" Booth announced. His attention was caught by a flashing light on her answering machine which indicated she had new messages. "Hey Bones, I think you forgot to listen to your messages last night."

Brennan nodded, and a smile played about her lips, recalling how very busy she'd been practically the second they'd walked through the front door. Booth pushed the button, and they listened while shrugging into their coats. But their movements slowed to a stop when the messages were once again completely void of speech or sound. Booth clenched his jaw tightly as he reached for the handset to check the caller ID. The numbers were _Unknown_ this time, which concerned him a little more.

"Damn it," he cursed irritably.

"The prison?" Brennan assumed.

"No. If it was him, he found a way to disguise the call. We'll have Angela see what she can find out on Monday."

"No, Booth. There's no need to bother her with this. They're just phone calls."

"Bones, if he could figure out how to block the caller ID from a prison payphone, then what else can he do from the inside? I'm not taking any chances here, I want to know _everything_."

"I understand that, but… there's been no harm done. I really just want to let it go. At least for the day, alright? Let's enjoy a visit with your grandfather and put it out of our minds."

Booth sighed and lead her out the door, but he made no such promise. If Brennan was going to be difficult about it, he'd keep an eye on the situation himself. And he knew that he could trust Angela to figure out what was going on.

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"Shrimp!"

"Hey, Pops," Booth replied with a chuckle. He hugged his grandfather tightly and gestured to Brennan. "Pops, this is my partner, Dr. Temperance Brennan. Bones, this my Pops."

"It's very nice to meet you, Mr. Booth," Brennan told him, extending her hand to shake his. But the silver haired man surprised her by capturing her fingers lightly and bringing them to his lips. He smiled at her warmly but addressed his next words to his grandson.

"Wow… you weren't kidding."

Booth blushed deeply as Brennan turned to him in suspicion.

"What did you tell him?"

"A lot, actually. But I assume he's referring to how beautiful you are. Cause I definitely told him that quite a while ago," Booth answered, gazing at her affectionately. Now it was Brennan's turn to blush.

"Um, thank you."

"You can let go of her hand now, Pops." _The old man could charm the skin off a snake_ , Booth thought wryly.

"You can call me Hank, sweetheart."

"Then you should call me Temperance," she said agreeably.

"It's a beautiful name," Hank approved. "Why do you let this joker get away with calling you _Bones_?"

"Well, I suppose I got tired of asking him not to." She glanced at Booth with an impish smile.

"Hey!" Booth's tone was indignant. "Maybe it bugged you at first, but you haven't asked me to stop since our third case."

 _And I never will,_ she thought happily. Once she'd heard the way the nickname sounded as he moaned it against her skin, there was no way she could imagine him ever calling her anything else. She pulled herself together to respond.

"That's true," she conceded. "I recognize that it's a term of endearment." They smiled at each other for a bit longer than was really appropriate, and Hank cleared his throat.

"Alright, well. If you two want to stop crocheting with your eyeballs, we can have a seat in the living room, huh?" He wheezed a laugh at his own humor.

"Crocheting?"

"Yeah, that's the codeword for sex around here, Shrimp." Booth pulled a face.

"Pops!"

"Always so proper," Hank said with a roll of his own eyeballs. "Would you loosen up?"

"He's quite skittish when the subject of sex comes up," Brennan agreed.

"No I'm not!" Hank and Brennan smiled at one another conspiratorially, and Booth sighed.

"Let's just talk about something else, ok?"

The three of them sat comfortably in the small living area of Hank's apartment. He lived in a retirement community that reminded Brennan a little of a hotel. Unlike most nursing homes that had the feel of a hospital, Willow River Community Home was set up more like an apartment building that just happened to come equipped with a nursing staff.

Booth had explained his grandfather's living situation on the drive. Hank had lived alone for a while after his wife died, but when he began to have heart problems, Booth had convinced him that being alone wasn't safe. He had offered to hire a home nurse who would check in on him every day, help with meals and housework. But Hank hadn't liked the idea of a stranger 'poking around' his wife's house. So they had found a suitable retirement community, and Booth was relieved. His grandfather seemed to have a number of friends there, and the staff checked on him a few times a day.

Brennan had heard him speaking to his grandfather on the phone a few times, but he hadn't visited since they'd been together. Booth seemed to echo her thoughts.

"I'm sorry I haven't been by for a visit in a while, Pops. The last couple of months have been really busy," he told the older man. Brennan's brow furrowed in concern.

"I'm sorry too, Hank. I'm sure that the prolonged length of time between visits was at least partially my fault."

"Bones, no, I meant that I've been busy at work," he reassured her. Brennan's expression cleared in understanding.

"Well that is true. We haven't really had a break since New Year's."

"Which is around the time you two finally got your act together, right?" Hank interjected, his blue eyes twinkling merrily.

"I don't know what that means."

"Yeah, it was around then, Pops." Booth smiled at her and explained, "He means that's when we started…"

"Crocheting?" Brennan supplied helpfully. Booth's face went red again, and Hank roared with laughter.

"I like this one, Shrimp. She's real. She's got balls."

"Well, ovaries actually."

"Well, alright. You got a pair of steel ovaries."

"Thank you."

Booth watched them, torn between discomfort at the blunt conversation and pure joy that they seemed to like one another. Hank was one of his favorite people in the world, and his approval was a must.

"Alright, alright. Let's stop making my grandson uncomfortable, talk about something else, I guess. How's Parker doing these days?" Hank asked Booth.

"He's great, Pops. Actually I brought you a more recent picture," he said, digging into his wallet for the photo. He handed it to his grandfather and continued, "He would've come with us, but Rebecca had something going on I guess."

"She cancel on you again?" Hank asked, his mouth screwed up in disapproval.

"Yeah, same old stuff." Brennan could tell that Booth didn't really want to discuss the situation with Rebecca. So she gave a quiet sigh but kept her mouth shut. Hank didn't miss her expression, however.

"I told you she was no good, Shrimp. Looks like _this one_ agrees with me," he said, gesturing at Brennan. Her eyes widened a little, and she looked apologetically at Booth.

"I just don't like the way she uses Parker to get to you, Booth. I'm sure she's not a bad person," she soothed. She wasn't sure if Booth was angry about Rebecca or just the fact that they were discussing her.

"Bones, I know what she does. And you're right, she's not a bad person, but she most definitely likes to manipulate people. Myself included," he grumbled.

"So when are you gonna pull your head outta your ass and do something about it?" Hank asked in a surly tone. Booth looked even more frustrated.

"Look Pops, it's not that simple… I really don't want to get into this right now, okay?"

Brennan stepped in then, asking Hank if he was ever able to come to DC for a visit.

"Now and then. It's been a while though. My back is almost recovered from the last time I spent the night on Seeley's couch," he teased. Booth's smile returned.

"Hey, I offered you the bed. You refused." Brennan smiled at the two of them and, as usual, offered a solution without hesitation.

"Yes, sleeping on a couch is very inadvisable. It can cause problems with vertebral alignment. Next time you're in town you should stay in my guest room."

Hank looked at his grandson with raised brows, but Booth was staring at Bones with a surprised expression of his own. She had extended the offer in her own 'Brennan' way, but Booth felt a rush of warmth for her. She was the one who always said that she didn't understand how families worked, but here she was, inviting his grandfather to be a guest in her home not thirty minutes after meeting him.

"Bones…" His voice was emotional, but she mistook the cause.

"Booth, it's fine. We're there half the time anyway. It makes sense." Hank smiled widely at her and leaned forward to touch her hand, ignoring his grandson's squirming at their sleeping arrangements being revealed.

"I'll keep that in mind, sweetheart. That's very nice of you." Brennan returned his smile and nodded as though it was nothing at all.

They continued to chat for a few hours, entertaining Hank with stories about their cases. He enjoyed the tale of their Christmas lockdown and 'Careful Lionel.' Brennan didn't miss the opportunity to share details about Booth's reaction to the antifungal medication, and Booth retaliated good-naturedly about Brennan's unintentional exposure to crystal meth.

Brennan watched the two men interact, avidly observing the level of comfort and trust they seemed to have with one another. She knew that Hank had literally saved his grandsons from their own father, and the profoundness of his actions humbled her. She found herself wishing that she had known her grandparents. As a child, her parents had told her that they had all passed away before she was born. Seeing the love and acceptance between Booth and Hank made her feel a little cheated, and she wondered how different her childhood might have been-or at the very least, her teenage years-if she'd had someone like him in her life. Or perhaps if the grandfather she had invented to escape Booth's pity had been real. Would she be the same person?

Booth seemed to believe that he was a better person for having Hank in his life, and judging by what she knew about his parents, Brennan tended to agree with him. Would she be a better person if she'd had someone like that? Would she be better at understanding how others behaved or spoke?

Brennan mentally chastised herself for entertaining thoughts that were much too close to the realm of psychology for her tastes. It didn't do any good to consider what _might_ have been. She'd been alone, and that was that.

Her attention was drawn back to the conversation rather abruptly at the mention of Peter's name. Booth was filling him in on what happened at the hearing. Apparently he had indeed told his grandfather rather a lot.

"You sleep with one eye open, Shrimp. I don't like the sound of this creep." Hank's face was stern.

"I'll take care of her Pops," Booth promised. Brennan rolled her eyes and couldn't resist the urge to argue.

"I can take care of myself perfectly well, Hank."

"So I've heard," he answered approvingly. "But even so, it's a good thing my grandson is around for backup." Brennan couldn't help but smile at the pride in Hank's voice when he spoke of _his grandson_ , and she happened to agree with him.

"I suppose," she conceded graciously.

They decided to head back home a short while later, and as they were leaving Brennan heard Hank speaking to Booth.

"Don't mess this up, Seeley. She's a keeper," he said quietly. Booth smiled happily as he caught Brennan's eye.

"I know, Pops."

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Brennan hadn't been in her office more than fifteen minutes on Monday morning when she heard the familiar sound of Angela's heels _click-clicking_ toward her office. She looked away from her computer screen expectantly. Today was looking to be a bit slower than usual, and Brennan had been hoping to get some work done on her book. She'd been happily occupied with other things-namely Booth-for the past month or so, and her publishers had since gone from persistent to unrelenting in their demands for new material.

"Okay, Bren. Everything's out in the open now, and I've been _really_ patient with you. But now it's time for you to _spill_." Angela's eyes were bright and eager.

"Spill what?" Brennan asked, feigning ignorance.

"Don't give me that, you know exactly what I'm talking about."

Brennan looked back at her with a rather sheepish smile. In truth, it was a wonder Angela had lasted this long. Brennan had been expecting her friend's inquisition long before now.

"You… want to know about my relationship with Booth," she acknowledged.

"Yes! I'm relieved to hear you call it a relationship. I was worried you might try to give me your 'biological urges' bullshit." Angela was practically vibrating with happiness for her friend. She'd known that _some_ thing was going on with Brennan and her partner, but she'd been afraid to be overly optimistic.

"What would you like to know? I can't tell you _everything_ , Ange. Some things are private." Brennan was adamant about that, knowing that Booth would greatly disapprove of Angela knowing intimate details of their sex life, even if Brennan herself didn't feel particularly bothered by it.

"I know, I know. But you've got to give me something, Bren. When did it start?"

"What exactly? The relationship? Or do you mean...when did we become more than partners?"

"Both! All of it!" Angela smiled sweetly at her friend's awkwardness. Brennan pursed her lips, trying to decide what was and wasn't okay to share.

"Well, we were definitely attracted to one another from our first case. Our first kiss happened kind of in the middle of it."

"Which first case?"

"Gemma Arrington."

" _Oh my God!_ He kissed you over a _year_ ago, and you didn't tell me?!" Angela was torn between disappointment and excitement.

"Well, you already know that things didn't end so well between he and I on that case, and the kiss was most likely a product of tequila, so… I didn't really think it was necessary I guess. I just decided to move on."

"Yeah, to Pete," Angela grumbled, rolling her eyes. "And a Guatemalan mass grave."

"Yes, well… At any rate, the tension during the Cleo Eller case was certainly not faked. But we talked for a long time the night he made me go to the ER."

"And you guys decided to give things another try?"

"Not right then, no."

"Well it had to have been before the donor's gala, because the sexual energy between the two of you could have set the building on fire," Angela gushed. Brennan laughed and colored slightly.

"He didn't kiss me again until after the case in Aurora. But we did kiss the night of the gala."

"Just a kiss that night? Sweetie anyone who watched the two of you that night could tell he wanted to carry you out of there and rip that dress right off you."

"Well, I guess it might have gone that way, but before we could do more than kiss, he got the call that Peter had been arrested. So nothing else happened that night."

"Figures," Angela said, shaking her head. "Okay, so fast forward to the steamier bits, cause I _know_ you're not _just_ kissing him these days." Brennan thought back to their conversation just before New Year's and her friend's accusation of appearing 'saddle sore.'

"You would be correct. That started right after Christmas. But I'm pretty sure you already figured that out."

"Oh yeah," she confirmed with a provocative arch of her brows. "So did the relationship part happen at the same time?"

"Yes," Brennan confirmed, unable to keep the euphoric smile from her face. Angela returned it.

"So the sex is good, obviously."

"Better than good. Better than _great_ , actually. But that's all you get."

Angela squealed a bit and clapped her hands quietly. She was ecstatic for her friend, especially since Brennan had been a broken record of 'biological urges' and 'antiquated rituals' for as long as she'd known her.

"That's enough," Angela told her. "I'm happy just knowing that _you're_ this happy. Seriously, it practically glows all around you."

"I know," she agreed with sideways smile. "I love him, Ange."

Angela's face was full of incredulous delight. _Could she possibly have heard that correctly?_

"Oh my God, Sweetie. _Temperance Brennan_ is in _love_?"

"So it would seem."

"And you've told him, right?" Angela asked, not quite able to believe it.

"Yes, before we made love the first time," she confirmed. Her friend's eyes widened even further.

"' _Made love_?' I've _never_ heard you describe it that way, Bren. In fact, you're usually pretty adamant about explaining why it _shouldn't_ be called that," Angela teased.

"Well… Booth has changed my mind about a lot of things."

"Obviously." Angela continued to smile. She sensed that Brennan had most likely shared all she was willing to share for the time being, so she stood up and walked around the desk. "Get up," she ordered.

Brennan was confused for only a moment after complying. Angela pulled her into the tightest hug she'd ever received from her and told her once more that she was happy for her. Brennan hugged her back, for once not feeling too terribly awkward about it.

"I'll let you get back to work," she said, still smiling widely. She resisted the urge to rub the stiffness out of her cheeks.

"Thanks, Ange." Her friend started toward the door. "And… thank you for...not pushing me."

Angela grinned and nodded before heading back to her office. She was relieved to finally have her suspicions confirmed. Plenty of rumors had reached her ears over the past month, and while she could believe some of them, others were completely ridiculous. _There was no way Brennan would ever have sex in her office…_

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A few hours later, Angela answered her cell and was surprised to see Booth's name on the screen.

"Hey there, Agent Studly. To what do I owe the honor?"

Booth rolled his eyes but unconsciously settled his thumb on his belt buckle.

"Hi, Angela. Need a favor, if you've got the time."

"Need me to give you a list of places at the Jeffersonian that aren't covered by security cameras?" Angela replied mischievously. Booth was sidetracked and immediately intrigued.

"You can do that?"

Angela laughed heartily. "I could probably be convinced."

"Well… that's uh, not exactly why I was calling."

"I assumed. What's up? Is there a new case?" Angela hoped that whatever came their way next was less dramatic than the last one. Especially when her best friend insisted on beating up gang leaders and the like.

"No, no case. It's something else. Bones got a few more empty messages on her answering machine. Last time, the caller ID traced to DC Central Detention, and Peter was the only logical culprit. He's back there for his joke of a sentence, but the ID on the most recent calls was 'Unknown.'"

"Hmm. Can you get me her phone records? I'm not sure if I'll be able to trace the calls, but I'll give it a try."

"Yeah, I can get them to you, maybe tomorrow. Thanks, Ange."

"Of course. Why are you the one asking me and not Brennan?"

"Bones is… well, being Bones. She doesn't think it's a big deal and just wants to let it go."

"And you think it _is_ a big deal," she stated.

"Maybe it is, maybe it's nothing. But I need to know for sure one way or the other."

"Yeah, I get it. She's been a bit reckless lately."

"What do you mean?" Booth was instantly concerned. _Good grief, what_ else _has she gotten herself mixed up in?_

"Well, you know, the whole thing with the gang leader…"

"Oh, right. Yeah… I love that she's fearless, but it scares the hell out of me."

Angela grinned widely at his choice of words. Hearing the word _love_ coming from him was just as satisfying as it had been with Brennan.

"You _love_ her, huh?" Booth could practically hear the cheshire cat grin in her voice. He sighed.

"Yeah, Ange. I assume you finally got around to hounding her for details on us, huh? That why you made the joke about security cameras?"

Angela gave a startled laugh. "Yes, I did have a talk with her as a matter of fact, but she didn't say anything about security cameras. Is there something _you'd_ like to share there, Studly?"

"NO, Angela. Mind your business," he replied with mock severity. He liked Angela. She was extremely competent in her job, which made them all look good, and she seemed to be a genuinely good friend to Brennan. When Brennan allowed her to be, at least. "I gotta go, Ange. I'll let you know when I get those records and email them to you, okay?"

"Sure. Hey, one more thing… Does Brennan know you're asking me to do this?"

"I mentioned it right after we listened to the messages, and she said she wanted to let it go. But I never agreed to that. You can tell her if you want, it's not like I need to keep it from her. Unless you think she'll be mad… Maybe we should wait til we figure out for sure if it was him?"

"I think she'll be even more frustrated it you're not open with her. Let her be mad at you for being an insufferably overprotective alpha male. Not for hiding something from her."

"Good point. Alright, I'll talk to her about it when I come get her for lunch."

"Good boy."

"Yeah, yeah. See you later."

"Bye."

Booth hung up the phone and returned to his paperwork, thinking back over the things Angela had said. He'd been a little concerned that Brennan would give Angela too much information about their relationship. He knew how relentless Angela could be. So it was a pleasant surprise to find out that she seemed to have told her best friend nothing but the basics.

 _Although a list of security blind spots wouldn't go amiss…_

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As they sat across from one another at the diner and waited for their food, Booth pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and slid it toward her.

"What's this?"

"Need your signature," he said vaguely. He watched her frown as she read the form.

"You want my permission to access my phone records?" Brennan asked. She looked at him, tilting her head to the side in resignation. "I thought we agreed to let it go, Booth."

"No, you said you wanted to let it go for the day so we could enjoy our time with Pops. And we did. Now we need to find out if it was really something to be concerned about or not. So sign the form."

"Booth, it was just a couple of phone calls."

"I'm aware of that, but if that asshole is still harassing you then he's violating the no contact order, and we might be able to get him some more jail time."

Brennan looked unconvinced, so he adopted his best pleading expression. She was reminded instantly of Parker asking for more sweets during his last visit. She hadn't been able to resist him... or his father, apparently. She gave an exaggerated sigh and dug a pen from her bag.

"Thanks, Bones," he said with a wide smile. She merely nodded, signing the form and sliding it back over to him as their food arrived.

"You can be a real pain in the gluteus, you know," she told him affectionately.

"Ass, Bones. I can be a real pain in the _ass_."

"That's what I said."

"Yeah, well… you love me."

She smiled and shook her head indulgently. "I do."

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Wednesday morning brought a new case. Brennan and Zack were called to the crash site of a private plane on a golf course, without Booth. Predictably, Booth had grumbled a bit about Brennan being in the field without him, and surprisingly, he wasn't the only one unhappy about it.

"I don't like it," Zack said a little petulantly.

"Why? He mostly ignores you."

"Ignoring me is Booth's way of acknowledging my presence. It's a guy thing." Hodgins had explained a lot of things to him during their 'male bonding ritual' the previous weekend. This was one of them. He now also understood that the reason Dr. Brennan chose Booth over someone like him had more to do with pheromones and hormones than with what they had or didn't have in common. Once Hodgins had explained it to him that way, he'd felt much better about the situation.

Brennan was confused by his logic but her response was waylaid by their arrival at the scene. She'd have to ask Booth if what Zack thought was true.

It took them hours to locate and pack up all of the remains, including a small number of bone fragments that didn't appear to have been involved in the crash. Once they'd returned to the Jeffersonian with the evidence, Goodman explained that their top priority was to identify the body of an unknown person who had been on the plane with two communist Chinese attaches when it had crashed. The State Department was leaning on him for the information, and he was in no mood to argue over the inexplicable presence of a few bone fragments.

Brennan was pissed. It was obvious to Booth the moment he saw her, and since she hadn't explained anything on the phone when she'd told him to come over, he felt a little uneasy. _Usually when a woman is angry, a man has done something wrong,_ he thought. But she looked pleased to see him when he walked into the Bone Room.

She explained the details of what she and Zack had found that morning and launched into a rant about Goodman submitting to political demands. _Ah,_ Booth thought in relief, _the man who did something wrong isn't me_.

"Well, golf courses aren't exactly federal jurisdiction…" he said, teasing her with his charm smile.

"Then whose jurisdiction is it?" Brennan could already feel her mood improving in response to his.

"I don't know, try the PGA." His grin widened as he saw her smile just a little. "I think you just don't want to work a case without me, huh?"

"I'm perfectly capable of working without you. I did it for years."

"Yeah, but now I've gone and spoiled you."

"Spoiled me for anything else?" _She'd certainly had that thought before_.

"Yup. Admit it." His eyes twinkled even brighter as he rounded the exam table to stand next to her. He leaned down to speak softly into her ear. "You can't get enough of me."

Every inch of her seemed to tingle, sending a rush of warmth straight to her center. _How the hell did he do that with nothing more than a few quiet, extremely cocky words whispered in her ear?_ Brennan shuddered and struggled to maintain focus, but Booth chuckled lightly, undeceived. Brennan was contemplating the notion of making good use of a nearby storage closet when they were interrupted.

"Dr. Brennan, Agent Booth. You have a visitor. He's waiting in your office, Dr. Brennan."

They thanked the security guard and headed in that direction, making eyes at each other all the way. A man stood in the middle of the room. He looked to be around Booth's age with wavy, dark blond hair. Brennan noted that he was shorter than Booth and lacked Booth's degree of facial symmetry. At some point, without being aware of it, she had started to compare every man to Booth. As though he was her standard for the male form.

"Dr. Temperance Brennan," the man said, his eyes lighting up a little more than Booth liked.

"Yes."

"Special Agent Seeley Booth," he acknowledged. "I'm Jesse Kane."

" _You're_ Jesse Kane?" Booth asked in surprise.

"You've heard of me?"

"I haven't," Brennan interjected, looking confused.

"Jesse here is sort of an expert in missing persons cases." _And a hell of a capitalist,_ Booth thought grimly. He knew the man had a reputation for profiting off the disappearance of his own father.

"I've done some writing on missing person laws and investigative techniques, inter-agency cooperation, jurisdictional dispute, that kind of thing. I heard about the bones you found on the golf course."

"I can't really talk about that," Brennan answered, looking a little uncomfortable.

"I don't mean the communist Chinese on the plane."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Communist Chinese…" Booth sputtered. _That information shouldn't have been available to him._

"The other bones, the fragments," Kane continued, ignoring Booth's outburst as well as the follow-up question about how he'd heard about the Chinese. He seemed to have eyes only for Brennan, and she grew uneasy under the intensity of his stare. "Those pieces of bone you found at the golf course… I'm pretty sure that's my dad."

Brennan exchanged a speculative glance with Booth, and he knew immediately that this could be the opening she'd been looking for so that they could turn the bone fragment find into a federal case. Which meant Booth could help. Brennan was keenly aware of Dr. Goodman's instructions to let it go, however, and she knew they couldn't talk here.

"Why don't we discuss it over lunch?" Brennan asked politely. The sooner they got Kane out of there, the better. She didn't feel like having another argument with her boss.

"Sure, that sounds great," Kane replied eagerly. Booth frowned.

"Wong Foo's?" Booth suggested to Brennan. She nodded and gave Kane the address, telling him they would meet him there.

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A short while later, they sat around a table, and Kane explained that his father had gone missing five years previously during a trip to his Virginia Beach cottage. Although Brennan was interested in why the man thought this particular set of remains would turn out to be his father, Booth was still focused on the 'national security' aspect of their conversation in Brennan's office, and he demanded an explanation.

"My investigations lead me to conclude that my father was murdered in the area and his body disposed."

"What did the police say?" Brennan asked.

"They gave up four years ago."

"Because there was no evidence of foul play," Booth interjected.

"The investigation was bungled. The city police didn't have the manpower, the state troopers said it was a federal matter, and you guys suggested a private investigator." Kane was getting a little agitated with Booth's attitude and resolutely turned his attention to Brennan even though Booth spoke again.

"It was not _bungled_ , okay, because there was no evidence of foul play. It's a common story, okay? A guy goes in for a pack of cigarettes and ends up renting out snorkeling gear in Guam."

"He doesn't know what it's like to lose a parent like you do," Kane told Brennan, pointedly ignoring Booth. Brennan was startled by his statement. For one thing, she was well aware that Booth knew _exactly_ what it was like. But more importantly, she was disturbed that a stranger would know about her family's disappearance.

"You want to back down a jot there, buddy?" If Booth had been irritated before, now he was fuming. _How dare this ambulance chaser try to talk to her about her family?_ Kane ignored him.

"How do you know about that?" Brennan asked, confused. The man gave her a sad smile before answering.

"No offense, Dr. Brennan, but you're a writer. You're a well-known scientist. It's out there. Plus, you're one of us."

"One of us?" Brennan echoed.

"People whose loved ones have simply vanished. In your case, both parents," he replied. Booth glared at the man and tried to turn the conversation back to a safer topic.

"Okay, how do you know about the Chinese?" But Kane continued to ignore him, staring intensely into Brennan's eyes. Booth snapped his fingers in front of the man's face and put his other hand in front of Brennan's. "Do not look at Dr. Brennan, okay? Whether you like it or not, this is an issue between you and the FBI."

Brennan rolled her eyes a little at Booth's childish actions and moved his hand away from her face. She then slipped her hand beneath the table and placed it on his knee, hoping he would understand her encouragement to calm himself. He did, but only minutely.

"If body parts are found in roughly the same area where my father disappeared, I'm going to know about it," Kane finally replied to the agent. "Radio chatter, the internet, the local law enforcement… That's all I'm prepared to tell you." He turned back to Brennan then and asked, "Do you mind if I ask you how many bone fragments you found?"

"Yes, I do. I don't discuss ongoing investigations," she answered soberly.

"She doesn't discuss ongoing investigations," Booth parroted, still irate.

"Fair enough, Dr. Brennan." He gestured to a box at his side. "These are my notes from the last five years. Every lead, every clue, every person I have ever talked with is here-"

"And why would Dr. Brennan care about that?"

"Cause it will at least give her a candidate to eliminate."

Brennan was brought up short by his logic and cringed slightly. She didn't really want to have any further dealings with the man, and clearly Booth felt the same way.

"He's got a point," she admitted ruefully.

"My father's medical records, pictures, last known whereabouts, even a connection to the golf course. Also my phone number. But don't worry; if I don't hear from you, you'll hear from me." Kane got up to leave the restaurant, and both partners were glad to see him go.

"Wow. Pushy," Booth commented.

"I guess he's discovered that being pushy is how you get people to pay attention," Brennan remarked drily. "The Chinese, the plane crash...that's geopolitics. But this is murder. Will you help?" Booth's face softened and he reached across the table to take her hand.

"You know I will. Maybe I can fudge it to Cullen, make it look like it was attached to the Chinese plane crash thing," he answered, the smile returning to his face now that the irritating Mr. Kane was no longer darkening his mood. Brennan returned it a little sadly.

"I'm sorry about what he said."

"Which part?" Booth asked sardonically. Nearly everything out of the guy's mouth had irked him.

"About not knowing what it was like to lose a parent," she clarified. "One way or another, you lost both of yours too. I didn't correct his mistaken assumption because it's not my place, but I found myself becoming angry on your behalf."

"It's okay, Bones. The world is full of jerks; that's nothing new," he soothed. She nodded in response. "Having you makes it better."

Her smile was genuine this time, and she leaned over to kiss him softly. As usual when their lips touched, they seemed to lose all sense of reality for a few moments. That is, until a certain cook and restaurant owner interrupted.

"Hey now, this is a family place," Sid joked amicably. He proceeded to clear their empty plates away, and the partners smiled, slightly embarrassed.

"Sorry, Sid," Booth told him.

"Ah, it's alright. At least you stopped bringing nasty crime scene photos in with you. I suppose a little PDA never hurt anybody."

"I don't know what that means."

"Public display of affection," Booth translated.

"Oh," she smiled. Sid smirked and walked away. "Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah, Bones," he affirmed, escorting her to the SUV with a hand on her lower back. "I'm great."

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Booth returned to work after dropping Brennan off at the lab, and they agreed to meet back at his place that evening. He was able to gain Cullen's approval to be involved in the case, and his first priority was to do some checking on Jesse Kane. Booth knew him by reputation mostly, and what he knew wasn't all that impressive. The way he made money from his father's disappearance disgusted Booth. _It would be like Bones writing a best-selling novel based on her parents' disappearance,_ he thought.

Booth had also been extremely uncomfortable with Kane's intense focus on Brennan, though he hadn't been able to put a finger on the reason at first. His manner wasn't necessarily flirtatious or forward, but it bothered him nonetheless. He believed Kane was trying to connect with Brennan on a personal level, to exploit her sensitivity about her parents in order to get her to do what he wanted. And the thought of anyone taking advantage of her like that made him angry.

He only hoped that they could solve this thing quickly and that the guy would move on.

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Just before leaving her office that evening, Brennan received a call from Jesse Kane.

"It's only been five hours since I agreed to help you," she said a little tersely after he identified himself. "I don't have anything conclusive yet."

"I apologize. It's just that this is the closest I've come to even the possibility of someone finding him. I'm sure _you_ can understand why I'm anxious."

"Perhaps, but that won't make identification any faster or easier."

"I understand. You said there was nothing conclusive yet. Does that mean you've got theories ?"

Brennan didn't miss the hopeful note in his voice, and she pursed her lips, deliberating whether or not it was appropriate to share. It wasn't, not really. But she couldn't stop wondering how she would feel were she in his position.

"The bone fragments are of the same sex and age as your father," she admitted. "But that's hardly conclusive."

"Well… That's something."

"You have hope even after five years?" Brennan asked, though she acknowledged privately that she still sometimes imagined finding her parents after _fifteen_ years. However, imagination was not the same as hope.

"People are found after decades, Dr. Brennan, after centuries," he answered, unintentionally encouraging that imagination. " _You've_ done some of the finding."

"Booth thinks you've made a living off the disappearance of your father," she told him in a slightly accusatory tone.

"It wasn't intentional. Within six months of my father's disappearance, I realized that no one was looking. And my efforts to change that evolved into advocating for the families of the missing. You should understand my motivation better than most people in law enforcement."

"I'm not interested in bonding over the loss of my parents," she said brusquely. "Booth is looking over your file now."

She told him she would let him know if anything came up and ended the call, thankful to be heading home to Booth.

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That evening, she and Booth discussed the case only briefly, quickly becoming distracted by one another.

"So let me get this straight… You're telling me you've got the squint squad deliberately disobeying an order from Goodman?" Booth was surprised by this. Typically his girlfriend was straight flyer, and he was both impressed and turned on by her rebellion.

"Yes, well… Goodman was wrong. We can't investigate one part of the scene and ignore another," she insisted, glancing at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. She finished brushing her teeth and turned to face him. "I thought you would agree that it makes for poor investigative technique. Do you think I was wrong to encourage them?"

He grinned at her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close. Her arms encircled his neck, and she tilted her chin upward to meet his lips. They kissed deeply for several moments before his mouth shifted slightly to graze the side of her neck. Brennan felt a tremor shake through her body and clung a little tighter to his shoulders, her nails scratching lightly.

"On the contrary," he admitted. "I think you playing the rebel is pretty _hot_."

He continued to alternate gentle nips and suction at the spot just below her ear that had become one of his places on her body. He'd never been with a woman who responded to him as quickly or as completely as Brennan. She whimpered in his arms and gave an involuntary thrust of her hips into his.

"Booth," she whispered. "Take me to bed."

He pulled back from her neck to meet her eyes and was instantly overwhelmed by the love he saw in their brilliant blue depths. _How was it possible that she loved_ him _of all people?_ _How was it possible that he loved her even more today than yesterday?_ He asked himself these questions fairly often and had yet to come up with logical answers. _Logic was_ her _thing,_ he supposed.

They shared a loving smile, and she allowed him to lift her gently into his arms. He settled them on his bed, still worshipping her lips with his own. They didn't break the kiss until oxygen deprivation became a real possibility, and he moved to pull off the pajamas she'd just changed into. She wouldn't be needing them tonight.

"You know, I think your clothes tend to look better on my bedroom floor," he told her lasciviously.

"Mmmmm… I concur." Brennan moved to divest him of his own clothing. "Yours do too."

He reclined backward on the bed and attempted to pull her back into his arms, but she had other ideas. She stroked his length skillfully, eliciting a low groan from his throat and causing his eyes to squeeze shut. Which is why he didn't see her moving her head intently downward until she could touch her tongue to the underside of his arousal, moving in a long stroke from base to tip. He jumped slightly and let a sound of surprise, his eyes springing open to look down at her. Brennan smiled in satisfaction at having been able to startle him, then sought to do so again by abruptly taking his full length into her mouth.

"Oh my God, Bones… Unbelievable." Booth didn't seem to be able to form any words more coherently than that, but she didn't mind. She knew by his body's reaction that he was enjoying it. She continued to work rhythmically over him until he thought he might come apart in her mouth. As much as he enjoyed when she did that, it wasn't what he wanted tonight.

Booth sat up slightly to grip the tops of her arms and encourage her to move her body upward. She gave him one last swirl of her tongue before complying. He groaned once more at her teasing, thankful that she had moved to straddle his hips.

"You... " he breathed heavily "...are exceptionally good at that." Brennan smiled in response and leaned forward to kiss him while he situated himself at her entrance.

"Only because it's you," she whispered, nearly as breathless as he was. In the next moment, he sheathed himself deeply within her, and she pressed her body to his wantonly. They quickly established a slow, seductive rhythm, never once breaking eye contact. She thrilled in the intensity of their connection and at the emotions she saw so clearly in his dark eyes.

Brennan gasped as Booth flipped them so that he hovered above her, sinking into her sensuously until he was completely buried within her. And yet somehow she felt the need for _more_. She clung to him, urging him closer, deeper, and when he obeyed, she cried out with her release.

Booth captured her lips once more and set a new, faster pace. He gently moved his arms beneath her knees and pushed them toward her torso. The angle allowed for the quicker movement he needed, and soon Brennan was shouting with yet another orgasm. His own climax followed quickly then, and he held her tightly to him as he burst within her.

Both struggled to catch their breath, brushing soft kisses and caresses upon any bit of skin they could reach on one another. He lifted himself away from her gently and settled down next to her, their limbs entangling themselves immediately in the desire to maintain the connection.

"I love you, Bones. So much," he whispered, pressing a fervent kiss to her forehead. She hugged him even tighter to her and sighed with her content.

"I love you too."

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 **I just realized this chapter opens and closes with BB sex. Like little, smutty book ends. Hehe. Oh, and I'm totally trademarking 'crocheting with your eyeballs.' ;)**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	18. Chapter 18

**Happy BonesDay! Holy hell, this hiatus was ridiculously long. As is this chapter. Next one's longer. Sorry? :)**

 **Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for the wonderful reviews, as always. FF was messed up for a while, and I couldn't reply to everything. I did try to send PMs, but I probably missed at least one of you.**

 **Two questions: 1-How do you all feel about a tiny time jump? Episodes 16-18 don't have much in the way of growth opportunity, and they mostly seemed like filler. So I would jump to The Man in the Morgue. Because protective Booth=hot. Haha. So far I've covered every episode, and I can continue to do that. I just don't want it to get boring.**

 **2-I feel like I need a friend to be a sounding board for some of my ideas. Not necessarily proof anything as a beta, but just plot ideas and helping me make it all fit together, particularly for a sequel. Any volunteers? I'm on Central time in the US, if that influences your decision at all, in terms of when I can chat.**

 **Enjoy!**

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Chapter 18

Between the squints' analysis and an interview with Kane's father's girlfriend, they were able to make decent headway on the case over the course of the following morning. The squints determined that the victim had been frozen, dismembered, and then fed into a woodchipper which dispersed the fragments over the golf course. The woman Booth and Brennan interviewed, Karen Anderson, had told them that Kane had stopped speaking to his father two years before his disappearance because the man had withdrawn his financial support. Brennan called Kane to the lab so that they could follow up.

Kane admitted that he had indeed been estranged from his father before his disappearance, but he claimed to have matured enough in the intervening years that he no longer blamed his father for pulling his financial support. Brennan seemed to accept his explanation, but Booth hadn't yet ruled him out as a suspect. At his suggestion, Brennan told Kane what had happened to the victim, and Booth watched his reaction closely. The man insisted that he couldn't imagine who would do that to his father, and Booth couldn't determine if his disgust was genuine or feigned.

Booth had to return to the Hoover for a meeting, and he wanted to check in with Angela for an update on the phone calls she was attempting to trace. He found her in her office, working up a recreation of the plane crash.

"Hey, Angela," he greeted her. "I only have a minute, but I wanted to see if you'd been able to get anything off those phone calls."

She glanced at him briefly and put her control pad down before gesturing him to her desktop computer screen. She showed him the trace she had made and pulled up a map of DC.

"All I've been able to determine so far is that the calls didn't come from a landline. They came from a cell phone and were definitely placed while the phone was in the DC area, judging by the tower routing. But it was most likely a burner phone, and it hasn't been turned on again since the calls were made."

"Can you tell what part of town?"

She shook her head sadly, "Only that it was most likely the eastern side. Nothing more specific than that."

"But the detention center is on that side of town," he reminded her.

"Yes, along with the homes of thousands of people. It's not enough, Booth. Besides, where would he get a cell phone?"

"Hell if I know. I might be able to get the warden to toss his cell…"

"Well, I guess that's something. But unless they find the phone, there's no way to connect him to the calls," she told him. "I'm sorry. I can keep working on it if you want, but I would suggest another tactic."

"Like what?"

"Well… if some mouth-breather was stalking _my_ answering machine, I'd take a head on approach. I'd have my calls forwarded to my cell so that I could answer them and talk to the creepy bastard personally. Give him a warning, make a threat, something. Someone who calls a person and doesn't speak to them is more likely to be a coward than anything else."

Booth considered her words and had to admit that he would do the same thing. But this was Bones getting the phone calls, and he wasn't sure that encouraging her to confront the unknown person was the best idea.

"You should also come up with alternative theories as to who it could be. Like some crazy fan who just wants to hear her voice on the outgoing message. If nothing else, it could give you people to eliminate."

"That's a good idea, Ange. I didn't really even consider it being a fan. Her number is unlisted though."

"A determined fanatic could get around that. Maybe start with her publisher. They handle her fan mail."

Booth nodded and thanked her. He needed to get to his meeting, but she'd given him a lot to think about. As he made his way to the Hoover, he couldn't help but feel a bit ambivalent. Was he really going to start a manhunt over a few non-threatening phone calls? She'd never agree with that, so it would have to be done quietly, and he didn't like the idea of keeping something from her. Booth sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face a few times. He would have to figure it out later.

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No sooner had Booth left the room than Kane was asking Brennan if he could see the bone fragments. Though she had told the man only yesterday that she couldn't even _discuss_ an ongoing case, Booth's encouragement to share details left her unsure of where the boundaries were. And again, Brennan could easily put herself in Kane's position. She would want to see.

She led him to the Bone Room where the small pieces of bone were laid out on the lighted exam table.

"This is all?" Kane's voice and expression were desolate.

"Yes. I mean… it's all of somebody."

"He was a big man, my dad. It's hard to believe that this is all that's left of him. How can you get anything from these small bits of bone?"

"It's more than a lot of people get," she told him sadly. _It was more than her parents had gotten._

"I know where my dad was right before he disappeared. I know what he ate for dinner that night, I know he was supposed to meet with Karen later but never showed up. I know she waited two days before reporting him missing. I have a good timeline, and I have these small bits of bone. You don't have any of those things, and I realize how hopeless you must feel."

Kane's voice was empathetic and genuine, but Brennan couldn't find the appropriate response. So instead, she led him back to her office.

"You're right, of course. All I have is a copy of their missing persons file. It's not much," she mused.

"You never tried to hire private investigators or did any poking around yourself?" Kane asked in surprise.

"Well, I'm pretty new at field work. I've mostly been a lab rat my whole career, and anyway I trusted the authorities would do what they could." She shrugged a little, feeling embarrassed to admit that she had given up hope just like everyone else.

"The authorities have rooms filled with missing persons files, warehouses."

"I'm the authorities, _Booth_ is the authorities."

"Did you ever show the file to Booth?"

"No… no," she answered, feeling foolish yet again. _Why hadn't she? It wasn't like he didn't already know about them. Why hadn't she asked him for help?_ She was brought out of her distraction by the realization that Kane was moving toward her with his eyes on her mouth. She backed away from him quickly, baffled as to why this man would think she wanted him to kiss her.

"This is where I work. And even if it wasn't, I'm involved with someone." Brennan's tone was icy, and for the first time in quite a while, she was thankful that Angela interrupted something.

"Which is my cue…" Angela said awkwardly, stepping hesitantly into the room. She looked at Brennan solicitously, unsure if her friend needed help.

"Um, Angela, come in. This is Jesse Kane."

Angela and Kane exchanged greetings, and Brennan asked about the paper her friend was holding. It was a schematic comparing the skull fragments they'd found to pictures of Kane's father. Brennan admitted that it didn't _not_ match his father, but warned him again that it wasn't conclusive enough proof to say unequivocally that it was him.

After Kane took his leave, Angela gestured to Brennan in the direction of her office and told her that everyone was waiting to take a look at a simulation she'd worked up on the mystery plane crash victim. As they walked through the lab, Angela turned to her with a bit of a smirk.

"You'd think that hickey on your neck would've sent a clear enough signal, huh?"

Brennan's eyes widened, and her hand immediately went to the souvenir from their activities the previous evening. Angela chuckled at her embarrassment.

"So are you gonna tell Booth that the guy tried to kiss you?"

"I don't know…" Brennan answered, distractedly. The thought hadn't even crossed her mind yet. "I'm quite certain he will be angry about it even though it's a waste of energy. Do you think I should tell him?"

"Yeah, Sweetie. I mean, put yourself in his shoes for a minute. If some cute girl tried to plant one on _him_ , wouldn't you want to know?"

The image of what she described left a sick, hollow feeling in her gut, and Brennan sighed before answering.

"Yes, I think so," Brennan answered. _Mostly so I could put my fist into the woman's teeth_.

"Well, there you are. You guys are just starting out. Don't hide things from one another."

"You're right," she conceded. "I'll tell him later."

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After a quick lunch of takeout on her office couch, Booth brought her out to one of the visitor parking lots where FBI techs were unloading the wood chipper that was thought to have been used to disperse the bone fragments. It happened to be the only one of its kind in Virginia Beach, and only two people had had access to it over the last seven years. Booth wanted to start with the name that had a record attached to it and asked Brennan if she would like to come along for the interview.

She agreed, but before they left, she instructed Zack to get together with Hodgins and run a dispersal pattern test on the wood chipper. Zack's eyes gleamed like those of a little boy on Christmas morning, and she left them to conduct their experiment. For once, Booth understood exactly what they were going to do and found himself intrigued as well as relieved that _this_ particular experiment would happen outside.

Other than their fifteen minute scarfing of takeout from the diner, the trip to the home of Ray Sparks was the first time they'd been alone since early that morning. Brennan enjoyed the familiar soothing quality of his presence and reached over the center console to take his hand. He squeezed it lightly in return, and they shared a smile. She had decided not to tell him about Kane's advance until after they had concluded one way or another if their victim was his father. Brennan knew that if the thought of someone trying to kiss Booth had inclined _her_ mind toward violence, then the same would most definitely be true for him. And that would certainly fall outside the boundaries of the professionalism they had promised their bosses they would maintain.

When they arrived at Sparks' home, the man made a run for it almost instantly. It was Brennan who encountered him first, grabbing him by the throat and shoving him backward until he lost his balance. He fell to the ground with a grunt, and she placed a foot against his neck to keep him down.

"Bones…" Booth muttered in chagrin. He really wished she would let him handle the dangerous people. Not that he doubted she could do it, but the sight of her taking someone down was more than just amusing and hot. It was frightening. The thought of her being hurt because he wasn't close enough or fast enough haunted him.

"Ray Sparks?" Booth said to the man on the ground, who promptly insisted that he'd done nothing wrong.

"I feel like kicking him," Brennan told Booth with a grin.

"That's normal after a pursuit," he agreed, moving to cuff the man. "We try not to do that." But he couldn't help returning her smile. Only his Bones could take a guy down by the throat with a smile on her face.

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Brennan watched from behind the mirror glass while Booth interrogated Ray Sparks. Unfortunately, the man had an airtight alibi for the time of Kane's father's disappearance; he'd been in jail.

Booth was growing frustrated at the lack of leads and decided that another talk with Jesse Kane was in order. He called the man to a meeting in his office and proceeded to test his reactions.

"One of the things you lecture about is that the simplest theory usually turns out to be true," Booth reminded him.

"Usually, not always."

"What's the simplest theory in this case?" Brennan asked, intrigued.

"Disowned son realizes that his father may remarry, he loses his inheritance…"

"Booth, are you accusing Jesse of murdering his own father for money?"

"Did you ever hear of the Menendez brothers?" The question was mostly rhetorical, but it didn't fail to get a response from Kane.

" _I_ came to _you_ about the bone shards saying it might be dad," he argued.

"Hey look, if your father is declared dead, you get your inheritance before Karen Anderson spends it all." Booth watched the man's face closely but saw no reaction to his words. "Well, you don't seem too upset about the accusation."

"Agent Booth. For four years I have been making enemies with law enforcement. Attacking me is a pretty typical response."

"Booth… Is this one of the times when you just poke and prod to get reactions?" Brennan asked quietly.

"Listen, Bones, we have to treat him just like any other suspect. He is not a member of the team."

Brennan nodded in acceptance, and although Kane hadn't seemed to mind what Booth thought of him, he jumped to correct any such assumptions that Brennan might be making.

"Look, I'm like you. I need the truth."

Brennan recoiled slightly at his words and unconsciously moved closer to Booth.

"No. What you're doing isn't healthy. Putting your whole life into this," she told him bluntly.

"And I suppose what you're doing, putting _nothing_ into solving the disappearance of your parents, I suppose that's healthy?"

"Hey! Her life and her past are none of your business," Booth said darkly. "You can go now."

Kane looked back to Brennan a little remorsefully before turning to leave. Once he was out of sight down the hallway, Booth gathered Brennan into a tight hug. She rested her cheek against his chest and simply allowed him to comfort her, not caring in the slightest that his office door was wide open and that they were most likely giving the bullpen a bit of a show.

"Don't listen to that guy, Bones. You do what _you_ feel is right for you. None of the rest of it matters, okay?"

She nodded slightly against his chest and took a moment to breathe him in before pulling out of his embrace. They exchanged their I Love Yous, again not giving a damn who might hear, and she returned to the lab.

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They returned to the golf course with a forensics team the following morning, searching for more bone fragments in the area that Angela's simulation indicated most likely to fit the dispersal pattern. The team did indeed find a fair number of additional fragments, but Brennan was slightly distracted by the appearance of Jesse Kane standing just on the other side of the perimeter.

Booth happened to be standing right next to her at that moment and followed her gaze. He scowled at Kane and placed a supportive hand on the small of his girlfriend's back. She leaned into him slightly in appreciation and smiled affectionately before turning back to the task at hand.

Kane watched them speculatively and realized that Booth was the 'someone' Brennan was involved with. He observed the proceedings for a little longer and left.

Upon returning to the lab with the newly recovered pieces of bone, Brennan discovered evidence of a non-malignant bone tumor that was _not_ present in the medical records Kane had shared with them. This was not his father.

No sooner had she come to that conclusion privately than Booth received a call telling him that Kane had been arrested for attacking Karen Anderson. As they rode together once again to the local police precinct that was holding Kane, Booth explained the circumstances as he'd been informed over the phone, stating that the assault did not automatically mean Kane was the killer.

"No poking and prodding. Do you think Jesse murdered his father?" Brennan asked with interest. Booth sighed and chewed his lip a little before answering.

"You know, Bones… All I'm saying is that we get into these things, we look into murders, and we can't let our heart strings get all plucked. Okay? We've got to poke at people's wounds, we've got to make them bleed a little, we've got to make them tell us things that they normally wouldn't want to tell us. Alright? We've got to be willing to be hard on them; that's what I'm trying to say. Even when we know that we're no different than them."

Brennan recognized that it was the first time she'd heard him make a statement which included himself in regards to people who have lost loved ones. She felt a little proud of him in that moment.

"You didn't answer my question," she told him persistently.

"Well, I have an opinion. You want to know?" She nodded. "If I had to bet, I'd say he didn't do it."

"Me too," she said immediately, smiling at him.

"I'm going off my gut. I mean… what's persuading _you_?" Booth asked, surprised at her quick agreement.

"The bone fragments at the golf course didn't belong to Max Kane." Her face was pleasantly smug, and he realized that she'd been messing with him. He grinned back at her approvingly.

"That's great. You knew that when you asked what I thought. You testing out my instincts, Bones?"

"Poking and prodding," she explained cheerfully before reaching over to pinch his cheek. "I learned from the best."

He laughed and captured her hand to press it to his lips.

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Once they'd arrived at the station, they quickly informed Kane that the victim was not his father after all. Booth pulled some strings to get the assault charge dropped, and they were quickly on their way back to the lab, leaving a crestfallen Kane in their wake.

The squints quickly determined that Ray Sparks was the likely murderer of the unknown victim since he'd been the one with access to the wood chipper at the time. Booth recalled that the man had told him he and his brother had inherited their home from his mother, and he posited that the victim was Ray's brother. Zack drew their attention to the presence of polyurethane under the victim's fingernails and advised the partners to look for a large freezer while they were checking Sparks' home.

They found the freezer in Sparks' basement as well as a shard of fingernail embedded in the underside of the door. Ray Sparks had locked his own brother in the freezer while he was still alive, removed and dismembered him after his death, and fed his body into a wood chipper to dispose of the evidence.

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That evening, Booth waited for her at Wong Foo's. The squints filled a booth behind him, but when she entered, Brennan went immediately to sit next to him at the bar. He grinned at her and leaned over to kiss her cheek gently. A chorus of catcalls sounded from behind them, and they each smiled down at their laps.

"Whatcha got there?" Booth asked, gesturing to a manilla file she'd laid on the bar.

"I...wanted to ask you a favor."

"Sure," he encouraged.

"Wait… actually first I need to tell you something. Now that the case is closed," she told him, not quite meeting his eyes.

"Okay," Booth said the word like a question, wondering what could have her looking so nervous.

"Yesterday when Kane was in my office, he… he approached me as though he intended to kiss me." Booth's eyes widened dangerously, and she hurried to finish. "He didn't even get close, and if he had, you know I'd have taken care of it. There was no harm done. And I'm honestly not sure why he thought that I would welcome his advance in the first place; I gave him no indications of attraction or interest. If anything, I was extremely critical of him…" She trailed off, realizing that she'd been speaking very quickly. His expression had cleared while she'd been rambling, and now he smiled at her fondly.

"There's no need to get worked up. I know you didn't invite his attentions. Some guys just don't know how act around a beautiful woman." He watched a blush color her cheeks. "I have no doubt that if he'd even touched you, the guy would've been sporting a couple of black eyes."

"At the very least," she agreed. "So… you don't want to find him and beat him up?" Brennan asked uncertainly. Booth laughed.

"Is that why you didn't tell me til now?" She nodded, still looking skeptical. "Well, I guess if I had to keep looking at the guy til we finished the case, I might feel differently. So that was probably the right call."

"I thought so," she said, her face relaxing into a grin. "I wasn't even sure I should tell you at all, but Angela convinced me I should."

"Oh really," he said a bit dryly.

"Yes, she made me realize that if the situation were reversed, I would definitely want to know. I would also want to physically assault any woman who attempted such a thing, which is why I held off on telling you until the case was over.

Booth laughed heartily, feeling warm and happy. He loved that she was every bit as possessive as he was.

"So what was the favor you wanted to ask?" Booth questioned.

"I wondered if you wouldn't mind taking a look at this." She slid the file toward him and watched him open it.

"The file on your parents? Yeah, okay."

"Do you want to think about it? It's a pretty big favor."

"You'd do it for me," he reminded her with a sweet smile.

"Yeah, I would," she agreed. They both knew that if he ever decided to ask for help tracking down his own mother, she wouldn't hesitate.

"I'm proud of you, Temperance."

Brennan smiled, thrilling a little at his praise. She loved that she could make him proud. It was a feeling she hadn't experienced in a very long time.

Zack approached them at that moment and made a comment to Booth about closing the case. Booth ignored him and smiled in the opposite direction. But Zack's smile was bigger, and he returned to his table.

"You're still ignoring Zack?"

"Alright, look, I know you don't approve, but you know… it works for us."

"Yeah, I get it. And it's kind of sweet," she admitted.

"Hey, you know… your people are my people." He smiled his sunny smile at her, and she returned it.

"What, I have _people?_ " Brennan asked in surprise. He gave her a nod, and she felt a pleasant warmth in her heart. "I have people."

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As Booth slept beside the woman he loved that evening, he was plagued by nightmares of losing her. He dreamed that she went missing in a number of ways, and he was left with no means of finding her, even after years of searching. Just as Brennan and Jesse Kane had experienced with their parents. Booth's worst nightmare was that Brennan could simply vanish from his life so easily.

After the third time he awoke covered in sweat and breathing heavily, he gave up on sleep altogether. For once, he seemed to have been dreaming quietly, because Brennan had not stirred. He knew that if she'd heard him, he would've woken to her arms around him, comforting him in any way she could. Careful not to disturb her, he rose from the bed and went out into the living room. The file she'd given him lay benignly on the coffee table, and he settled down on the couch to open it. It was fairly sparse, as he'd expected. The file he'd read so many months ago had even less information. And it hadn't contained pictures. Booth looked at the photographs with a sad smile. They had been a happy family; it was clear in their faces. He smiled wider at a picture of a young Brennan, perhaps around ten years old. He thought that she looked a lot like her mom.

Perhaps twenty minutes after he'd left the bedroom, Brennan awoke to a cold empty space where he should have been laying. Slightly alarmed, she got up to look for him and found him staring at her childhood picture.

"Why aren't you asleep?" Brennan asked in concern, doing her best to stifle a yawn.

"I just couldn't sleep, I guess," he replied vaguely. She arched an eyebrow at him, silently asking for more information. He sighed and said "I kept having nightmares about you going missing. I didn't feel like trying to sleep again just yet."

Brennan glanced at the clock on a nearby shelf. It was two in the morning. With a deep sigh, she came over to sit next to him on the couch and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"I am absolutely certain that if anything like that ever happened, you would never give up trying to find me," she assured him. "I'm… I'm frustrated with myself for not trying harder to find out what happened to my parents. I have no evidence that they're dead, and yet that's what I've assumed all of these years. When I look back on my childhood before they left, I can't recall anything to contradict the belief that they did love me and Russ. I just can't imagine that they would've left us voluntarily and never came back even to check on us."

Booth nodded, digesting her words quietly with his mind on what investigation tactics would be best in his research. But he was distracted when she pulled away from him suddenly, looking guilty. For a moment he was confused, but as he replayed her words, he heard them in a different context. She had belatedly recalled that Booth assumed his own mother had left him and Jared voluntarily, and her heart contracted at the thought that she might have hurt his feelings.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, her blue eyes deep as an ocean.

"It's okay," he assured her with a gentle smile. He was no longer the little boy who had been abandoned by his mother to the mercy of an abusive father. While there were occasions that brought the pain of his formative years back to the surface-such as the Warren Granger case-he had stopped suffering over it long ago.

Booth pulled her into his lap and kissed her with gentle passion. Brennan curled into his chest, and they held each other in silence. When he looked back down at her a short while later, he smiled to see that he had fallen asleep in his arms. He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead and carried her back to bed. It was still a while before he dared to close his eyes again, so he laid beside her, memorizing the peaceful expression on her beautiful face. Eventually, sleep claimed him as well, and this time he dreamed happy dreams.

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The weekend passed mostly without incident, aside from Parker's continued absence. Rebecca had refused to schedule a makeup visit and had told Booth that the following weekend would simply have to be good enough. Booth was angry but felt powerless, and Brennan did her best distract him from the disappointment. She had planned to spend some time writing that weekend, and though she didn't allow Booth to read her manuscript, she did let him give her a few ideas that she could work in.

They discussed Angela's advice on the mystery phone messages, and Booth told her that he liked Angela's idea of forwarding the calls to a cell phone. Except that he thought it should be _his_ cell rather than hers. Brennan argued that it would be a silly waste of his time and probably not bring him any closer to finding out who it was anyway. In the end, they compromised. She would change her number, and he would let it go for now.

A new body was delivered to the lab the following Tuesday afternoon. Goodman informed them that the FBI was fairly certain the man was James Cugini, a mob boss who had disappeared roughly six years previously. Brennan leaned down to examine the block of cement encasing the victim's feet, begrudgingly admiring the proficiency of the murderer.

"Should we really be involved in this stuff?" Hodgins asked a little hesitantly. "I mean, they're really into the whole killing thing."

"I can provide you with a job description, if you've forgotten what we do here, Dr. Hodgins," Goodman offered waspishly. Brennan ignored them and turned to address Zack.

"After you clean him up, Zack, I want you to x-ray the bone for any bullet fragments. Be very careful cleaning the exit and entrance wounds. I want to recover any markings the bullet left as it passed through the bone."

"Yeah, I can have them ready by eight tonight," he replied. Brennan shook her head.

"Uhh, can't work tonight. Tomorrow's fine." She and Booth had made plans to spend the evening doing some research on her parents' case. Brennan would be picking up takeout and meeting him at his place in just a few hours. If anyone was surprised at her declination to spend all night working the new case, no one commented either way. Only Angela spoke up to announce that she couldn't work that night either since she had a date with someone she'd met online.

"You're dating online?" Booth asked, appearing suddenly at the base of the steps and swiping his access card. An unfamiliar man accompanied him up the steps.

"Well, it's a practical way of objectively examining a potential partner without all the game play," Brennan defended her.

"That comes later if it works out," Angela agreed with a salacious grin. She then turned her attention to the good looking stranger on Booth's flank. "Hi, I'm Angela."

Introductions were made swiftly, and the newcomer, identified as Agent Jamie Kenton, moved toward the lab table curiously to examine the remains. Booth's attention was stuck at the earlier conversation.

"So what if your computer date's a psycho?"

"Only about a billion people date online," Angela told him. The dismissive tone of her voice reminded him of the one Brennan typically adopted when itemizing his alpha male tendencies.

"Yeah, I have," Hodgins added benignly. Booth scoffed and shifted his gaze to meet Brennan's.

"You know, whatever happened to seeing someone across a crowded room, eyes meeting, 'that old black magic gets you in its spell…'" His voice had taken on a smooth, dreamy quality, and Brennan grinned at him before giving her standard response.

"There's no such thing as magic," she replied smugly, enjoying their usual banter.

"Oh there's magic," he insisted with an extremely sexy version of his charm smile. Angela watched the two of them flirting and sighed happily. _They are so freaking adorable_ , she thought, repressing the urge to squeal. Brennan spotted her reaction and thought it best to move the conversation along.

"Are you here for a reason? Because I thought Kenton was handling this," she asked him, gesturing to the remains.

"We have some remains to look at," he answered.

"I'm already looking at them."

"Nope, not the Cugini case. Kenton will babysit them. These are fresh."

"Well, I was told that our friend in the cement shoes took precedence."

"That was before we found someone tortured and ripped apart by dogs."

They drove separately to the scene since Brennan wanted to bring Zack along to help, and Booth would later need to return to his office for a few things before calling it a night. The scene was rather gruesome, even by Brennan's standards. The body was tied by the wrists to a pole above its head, and large dogs were in cages lining the walls of the room. The noise they made was distracting.

A quick examination of the remains confirmed Booth's fear that this murder may be connected to that of a seventeen-year-old girl found in a tool shed. She'd been bound, slashed, eyes gouged out, and there had been nothing left for her parents to identify. The suspect at the time was named Kevin Hollings, but the forensic evidence had been limited, and the guy hadn't been prosecuted.

Brennan asked if the man had used dogs before, and Booth suggested that it must be his new way to test the investigators. After they wrapped up the preliminary exam and supervised the removal of the remains for transport, they parted ways. Brennan needed to drop Zack back at the lab, and Booth needed to stop at his office before heading to his place.

"I'll pick up dinner," she told him. "You still want to try that new place?"

"Yeah, sure. I"ll see you in a bit."

Brennan said goodbye to Zack and headed toward K Street and a restaurant called Nolita's. As she strolled down the sidewalk, she began texting Booth to verify his order but dropped her phone on the ground.

She bent to retrieve it and was shocked by sudden explosions of gunfire. Brennan instinctively took cover behind a parked car as shop windows shattered and glass sprinkled to the pavement like raindrops. She counted seven shots in total, and even after they had ceased, she remained on the ground, trying desperately to control the surge of adrenaline now coursing through her body.

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Booth had been called to the scene quickly enough, but by the time he arrived, she was already gone. She'd sent him an extremely short text telling him that she was fine and was going back to the lab to work for a while.

Booth was beyond pissed. He yelled at a few officers who were there to process the scene for allowing Brennan to simply leave. The policemen were confused as to why they should have detained a person who was uninjured once she had given them her statement. Booth yanked a notebook out of one of the cops' hands and read her description of the events. _Seven shots. Seven fucking shots._

He fumed all the way to the Jeffersonian but was relieved to see her car in the structure. At least she'd gone where she said she was going. Brennan was only slightly less irritated, and she was taking it out on her squints. Booth could hear them arguing as he approached the platform, but he couldn't have cared less. What he needed was to feel her, physically, in his arms so that his frantic brain would finally be convinced that she was safe.

"Bones! What the hell are you doing here?" He swiped his card and bounded up the steps. She turned around to answer him.

"Working. Why does everyone find that so odd?" But he didn't answer her. Without breaking his stride, he pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her tightly. He didn't care where they were standing, who was watching, or the fact that she was still wearing her latex gloves. _She's okay,_ he tried to reassure himself.

Brennan was surprised by his actions but recovered quickly. She pulled her gloves off behind his back and let them drop to the floor, squeezing him back and burying her face against his chest. She was determined not to cry, but she knew that she was still in a bit of shock. They held each other for what seemed like a very long time, ignoring all of the eyes watching them studiously. When at last they separated, he took her face between his palms and bent his head to rest his forehead against hers. His breathing was _almost_ back to normal.

"I don't think it's a good idea for you to continue to work these cases," he told her sternly. She sighed and backed away from him.

"This is what I do, Booth," she insisted. He'd expected this reaction but was no less adamant.

"Alright look, whoever killed these victims wants to make sure you don't finish your investigation."

"Hundreds of criminals would like me to stop what I do. Are you suggesting I just give up my career?"

"Uh oh," Angela muttered from behind her.

"Just be reasonable," Booth pleaded.

"Fine. Logic suggests that the shooter is involved in one of these cases, so I should find out who killed them before he tries to shoot me again. Did forensics recover the bullets that were meant for me?"

Booth couldn't repress the shudder the wracked through him at her words. _He'd come so close to losing her. Way too close._

"Ballistics is running tests on them right now," he answered shakily.

"And have you picked up the suspect in the young woman's murder?"

"Hollings," he supplied. "I don't want to spook him until we have enough evidence, but I've got guys watching him."

"Did you get a list of women age eighteen to twenty-"

"Eighteen to twenty-five, yes. They're on your server. Bones, everyone is doing their job. But right now, we need to go home."

"You can go. I'll come by later. Right now I need to work," she told him brusquely. She began to move back to the exam table, but he stepped into her path.

"Bones! I'm not letting you out of my sight until I find out who's trying to kill you. Now let's go." His tone did not brook refusal, and Brennan felt the fight rising up within her. They stared each other down for a moment, but his eyes shifted and took on a pleading quality. He was afraid: thoroughly 'freaked out,' as Angela would say. Her resistance dissipated, and she sighed in resignation.

"Alright. Let's go." He hugged her again and whispered his thanks into her ear before escorting her to her office to gather her things and then through the heavy glass doors.

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Brennan grumbled petulantly for the majority of the drive to his place, but Booth held his tongue. He'd gotten her to leave the lab and come home. Arguing with her wasn't wise at the moment.

They got ready for bed in relative silence, but the second she slipped between the cool sheets, his arms were around her. Brennan could feel him trembling and instantly felt guilty for wishing she'd stayed at the lab to work all night. That just wasn't her life anymore. As important as their cases might be, Booth took priority. She hugged him tighter to her and rubbed soothing patterns over the smooth skin of his back.

"It frightened me too," she admitted quietly. He leaned his head away from her to meet her eyes. "But Booth, I can't just stop working on these cases. That would be letting the bad guys win, and we don't do that."

"I know," he said with a sigh, acknowledging the truth of her words. "But you're just going to have to deal with me being overprotective for a while." Brennan chuckled lightly and touched a hand to his cheek.

"I think I've gotten pretty well accustomed to that particular character trait by now." Booth returned her smile and pressed his lips to hers gently. He moved a hand to her jaw and curled his fingers around the back of her neck, tilting her head slightly and deepening the kiss. She responded instantly, sharing his need for closeness and intimacy.

Brennan had been more afraid than she'd let on. The memory of the shots fired in Little Salvador was still fresh in her mind, and the only positive thing that could be said for this experience by comparison was that at least Booth hadn't been in danger as well. She was quite certain he wouldn't agree with that assessment, however.

As usual, his touch calmed her and excited her at the same time. Her anxieties eased even as her heart rate accelerated, and she felt a flame of desire for him flicker low in her belly. They made love slowly with a hungry passion that was almost desperate. And when at last they lay sated in the twisted sheets, both of them felt much more like themselves.

Booth wrapped his arms around her so tightly it was as though he thought she might disappear if he let go. Brennan squeezed him back and savored the feel of him all around her. His need was equal to hers, and that knowledge comforted her.

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Booth had done his best not to hover over her at the lab the next morning, but when Brennan was able to give him confirmation on the mob boss victim, she was grateful that he stepped out to make the call to Kenton. Angela found Brennan at her desk before he returned and gave her the ID on the young female victim. Her name was Penny Hamilton, a medical student at American University.

"Booth is going to think this is his fault," Brennan said with a sad tilt of her head.

"He knew her?"

Brennan shook her head. "The killer has done this before. Booth couldn't get the evidence he needed. The guy promised Booth he never would."

"Where is Booth anyway? Thought he wasn't going to let you out of his sight," Angela said, watching her friend roll her eyes a little.

"I gave him the positive ID on Cugini. He's calling it in to Kenton. I'm sure he'll be back soon."

Angela pursed her lips in disapproval of Brennan's attitude. The woman had been _shot at_ for the second time in a month. How could she still not take the dangers of her job seriously?

"Hey, Booth is a big, strong, _hot_ guy who wants to save your life. I mean you actually have a knight in shining FBI standard-issue body armor. Plus, he loves you. So cut him some slack."

"I _am_ grateful, Ange. But I'm not going to stop working these cases until we catch the bad guys. And you know as well as I do that Booth would do exactly the same thing if the situation was reversed."

The 'knight' in question chose that moment to appear in her office door way.

"Kenton heard the Romanos were pissed that we're reopening the investigation. They get pissed; they shoot." Booth's jaw was tight, and his eyes didn't leave Brennan's, communicating silently even when Zack stuck his head in to inform her that the bones were clean.

As she got up to follow him, Booth spotted Angela's sketch on her desk and picked it up. Brennan confirmed that it was the face of their female victim, and Booth's expression grew even darker.

Brennan examined the entrance and exit wounds on the mob victim and theorized that it might be possible to reverse engineer the bullet based on the markings it had left on the bone. She explained her idea in more detail for Booth, and he was visibly impressed.

"I've never heard of that technique," Zack stated, his brow furrowed as though there couldn't possibly be a part of his field that he'd not read about, even if he was still technically a student.

"It's a theory I've been working on," Brennan admitted. "I thought this would be a good time to test it."

Booth smiled proudly at her and asked Zack if there was any more information on Penny Hamilton as of yet. Zack told him that the cuts to her body had been done with a non-serrated pocket knife, but the eyes had been gouged out with something else he hadn't yet been able to identify. Booth nodded and turned to Brennan.

"And Hodgins is playing with dog poop, so everyone's got something to do," he concluded. "Let's go."

"What?"

"Kenton is putting together everything he's got on Cugini's disappearance."

"I'm probably more valuable here," she argued.

"No, you're definitely more valuable alive. Alright? I'm not leaving you alone. Come on," Booth stated firmly.

"If it's so dangerous here, why are you leaving _us_?" Zack asked in concern. Booth leaned over to punch him none-too-gently on the arm.

"Big strong guy like you, huh? You'll be able to take care of yourself."

Zack grimaced and rubbed his arm, thinking that he liked it better when Booth simply ignored him.

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Booth sat in his desk chair across from Brennan and Kenton, listening to the other agent's theories. He believed that the Romanos were behind the death of James Cugini, and he offered the credibility he had gained as an undercover agent within their organization. He had run with them for two years and left when he felt his cover was being blown.

"So you think they tried to do away with the good doctor here?" Booth asked, gesturing to his partner.

"Well, they're trying to look more legit," Kenton explained, referring to the family's legitimate business front. "They don't want ancient history resurfacing: bad for business."

"You don't _know_ it's them," Brennan argued.

"I still have my sources," Kenton insisted politely. "They tell me the Romanos know you're working this case, and they know you're the best. I recommend you walk away."

Brennan turned to Booth incredulously. He looked guilty.

"Is this why you brought me here? To scare me into giving up?"

"I want you to get real, alright? These people you're dealing with-"

"We don't know _who_ we are dealing with. It could be them, it could be Hollings…" But Kenton was shaking his head and replied quickly.

"No, no, no. Serial killers, they follow a pattern. They don't bind and torture and then start picking people off with a high-powered rifle."

"You said Hollings promised no one would ever find enough to get him," she told Booth, ignoring what Kenton had said. "Maybe he knows that I can."

"Either way, too dangerous," Kenton argued. Brennan was really beginning to get annoyed with his presence.

"Bones, you almost caught a _bullet_ in the _skull_."

"I can give you answers, Booth. I can help you get Hollings. You really want me to walk away because it's dangerous?" Brennan asked, disbelieving. But she found her answer in his expression.

 _Yes_

"Sorry, man, I tried," Kenton told him. She try to stifle her irritation with the man and asked about the ballistics results on the bullets which had been meant for her. He replied that it was a military issue Colt AR 15.

Brennan's cell rang, and she turned slightly in her chair to take a call from Hodgins. As she spoke, Booth found his focus stuck on the ballistics results. _That kind of assault rifle was also used by federal, state, and local law enforcement._ He didn't know what it meant yet, but it was a clue.

Hodgins was telling Brennan that the dogs had apparently been lured to the scene with liver scraps infested with a certain parasite. Zack spoke up over the speakerphone to inform her that the pocket knife which had been used on the female victim's body would have a knick in the blade. She thanked them and hung up, turning back toward the two agents eyeing her curiously. Brennan ignored Kenton and addressed Booth.

"Listen, you know I can't just give up. If _you_ were the one who'd been shot at, there's no way you would walk away." Their gazes held, and she knew he was remembering the compromise they'd made about being cautious in the field. He'd agreed to exercise the same level of caution that he would want from her. Asking her to give up was hypocritical. Especially since he had recently put a gun in a gang leader's mouth and had filled his quota for hypocrisy. He nodded at her in resignation, but the worry still clouded his eyes.

He resolved to simply do whatever it took to keep her safe, just as she trusted him to do.

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Booth and Brennan paid a visit to Hollings' apartment, and Brennan was immediately uncomfortable with the man's demeanor. He had an eerie calm about him, and his expressions never seemed to reach his eyes. Hollings allowed them into his apartment without a warrant, and Brennan's eyes lit quickly upon a pocket knife sitting on his coffee table.

"May I open this?" Brennan asked.

"Of course," he replied politely. She inspected it briefly and returned it to its place. The blades were clean and free of knicks. Hollings mentioned that he'd read about the shooting, and Brennan privately cursed her publicist for being so loose-lipped with the media.

"Is this about that girl they found the other night? Terrible thing. I hope you don't think that I'm involved in this one too, do you Agent Booth?" His voice was mild and pleasant, as though he didn't think the mutilation and murder of a young woman was 'terrible' at all. "I can guarantee that whatever you're looking for, you're not going to find it here."

"What we need might be locked up someplace," she stated, noticing a table full of keys. In jars, in baskets, in bowls-there were thousands.

"Wow," Booth said. "There are dozens of keys here."

"Tens of thousands," Hollings corrected as he moved to stand behind them. Booth whistled and shook his head slightly.

"Maybe we'll just take them down to the Bureau and look through them." Booth's voice took on a taunting quality.

"That's a private collection. I'm afraid without cause or a warrant…" Hollings looked smug until he watched Booth pick up a small key ring with the end of his pen.

"Oh, you see I do have cause. You see this key here is from a federal building. It says ' _Do not duplicate.'_ And the other one looks like it was used in a burglary just around the corner. And you did allow us into your home."

"This is very rude, Agent Booth. I opened my home to you and this is how-"

"Before anything is removed, we should photograph everything. How he's arranged the items in the room could be very important," Brennan interrupted. Booth raised his eyebrows. That sounded very much like _psychology_ , and his smile was genuine when he turned back to Hollings, who had voiced the intent to call his attorney.

"Game's not so fun now, is it, Hollings?"

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After the house had been photographed and the keys brought in as evidence, Booth brought Hollings in for questioning. He sat next to his lawyer across the metal table of the interrogation room, and even from the observation room, Brennan could see the tension rolling off her partner.

Hollings' attorney argued with Booth over the legality of confiscating his key collection, and when Booth had an opening, he tossed a picture of Penny Hamilton's remains onto the table. The lawyer cringed in horror, but Hollings' expression remained blank.

"I imagine it must be frustrating when you can't solve a crime," he told Booth in even tones. The attorney insisted that Hollings hadn't missed a day of work in two weeks, but Booth barely heard the words. He was watching Hollings' face as the man stared down at the photo.

"Can't stop looking at it, can you Hollings? Hmmm? What does it do to you? Does it make you hot?" Booth taunted him.

Brennan frowned behind the glass, and Kenton joined her in the observation room.

"Is that the psycho?"

"He's brilliant," she told him. "He knew we were looking for a pocket knife so he left one in plain sight. The wrong one."

"If you don't find anything concrete, he walks. Right?" Brennan shook his head, looking at the agent briefly.

"I don't think Booth could live with that. Those keys have to lead somewhere."

Kenton didn't reply but instead handed her a file. He explained that it contained everything they had on every suspect surrounding anything the Romanos had been mixed up in. Even blood types for some of them.

"Thanks," she told him. "After we recreate the bullet we can track the angle of entry based on height and-"

"I don't get it," he interrupted. "You don't have the physical round that was shot."

"I'm trying to make one based on the wounds. It could give us the murder weapon."

"Sweet," he replied, looking impressed.

"If it works," she stipulated.

"Well let me know if there's anything else I can do for you."

"Sure." She turned back to the window as he left, and Booth was finishing the interview. Hollings wouldn't be charged with anything yet, but she could tell by the set of her partner's shoulders that he wouldn't be letting this one go.

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When they returned to the lab, Goodman had a look at the photos they'd taken of the key display and instructed them to focus their search on the keys from the righthand side of the table. Brennan touched base with Zack, who was still trying to determine what kind of tool had been used to gouge out Penny Hamilton's eyes.

Hodgins appeared to inform them that the concrete housing Cugini's feet could be traced back to a construction company which had been owned by the Romanos at his time of death. Brennan found Booth and relayed the information.

That afternoon, one of the Romanos was questioned but gave them no meaningful information. A judge had ordered the release of Hollings' possessions, and when he informed Brennan and Kenton of the development, his genius partner had experienced an epiphany of sorts. The crenulations of a key were responsible for gouging their victim's eyes. Kenton was again impressed by her insight, and Booth beamed with pride. He was feeling more confident with this case than the last one that had involved Hollings. They would get him this time, because this time he had _her_.

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They decided to stay at her apartment that evening, in spite of Brennan's objections that she would have been just as safe at the lab with a full security staff where she could be making some more progress on the case.

"No, you need to get some sleep. You're cranky when you're tired," he accused playfully. She backhanded his bicep in return. They'd stopped to eat at the diner, but it was still a little early for bed. Booth was craving some lighthearted fun and found himself wishing, certainly not for the first time, that he'd tried harder to convince her to get a television. He understood that _she_ may have never watched hers, but now that he was staying here sometimes too, things were different. A man couldn't live without his TV.

He spotted the CD player on her shelf and was thankful that she at least owned some music. Brennan followed him across the room to stand in front of it, encircling his waist with her arms and peeking over his shoulder. He teased her lightly about her music library but enjoyed hearing her talk about her love for jazz.

"Whoa! What's _this_?" He was waving a Foreigner CD case in the air. "Nice."

"Booth…"

But he was already loading the CD, and the opening percussion of ' _Hot Blooded'_ filled the room.

"Uh… how'd that get there?" Brennan asked, thinking that he might be making fun of her.

"Oh, please. Everybody loves Foreigner!" He started to bob his head to the beat and turned up the volume. "Hot Blooded? Talk about a guilty pleasure. Check it, baby." He sang along with Lou Gramm's vocals and mimed playing an invisible guitar.

Brennan watched him with a grin, enjoying this side of Booth that he didn't reveal often enough. She decided to join, and she jumped forward to dance next to him, singing for all she was worth.

 _Okay, so Bones is an adorably horrible dancer_ , Booth thought happily. _Nice to know she's not good at_ everything. But as the song progressed, their bodies moved closer to one another, and they ditched their air guitars. Instead they swayed to the music with their lips moving against one another, their tongues and hands exploring. _She's exceptionally skilled at_ this _kind of dancing_ …

The song changed, and it brought back an awareness of their surroundings. They'd made out through nearly the entire length of ' _Hot Blooded'_ and all of ' _I Want to Know What Love Is_ _.'_ They laughed softly and shared one more kiss before she pulled away to turn down the volume a bit.

"Do you want something to drink? I picked up some of that beer you like so well," she told him with teasing smile.

"Hey, just because I can't drink that Moroccan crap you drink doesn't mean-"

Her lips connected with his again, swallowing his snarky retort. When she leaned back again, she gazed up at him looking so pleased with herself that he laughed out loud.

"I wish I could shut you up like that _all_ the time," she remarked cheerfully.

"Hey, you'll get no complaints from me." He kissed her quickly once more and headed toward the kitchen. "Is it in the fridge?"

"Yeah."

"You want anything?"

"Maybe just some water." Brennan heard the cabinet door opening but was completely unprepared for the explosion that followed, shaking the walls and floor of her apartment. The CD had stopped, most likely thrown out of balance, but she didn't register the change. She was running frantically toward the kitchen.

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 **That cliffie would be brutal if you didn't already know what was coming. Happy BonesDay! Review, put please don't leave spoilers for the episode. I can't watch til 2 a.m. CST when it hits Hulu. But I'm planning to write to keep me awake!**


	19. Chapter 19

**Fasten your seatbelts, cause this one's a roller coaster. A long one. It just didn't feel right to split it anywhere else. We have angst, fluff, and humor. Pretty much in that order.**

 **Thank you so much for all of the great feedback and to the couple of you who volunteered to help me work out my ideas. You guys are the best, and your praise means more than you know. :)**

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Chapter 19

 _This can't be happening._ She rounded the corner and saw him lying on the floor of her blackened kitchen, the disconnected refrigerator door on top of him. His clothing was on fire in several places, and she whipped her sweater over her head so that she could use it to smother the flames. _No, no, no, no…_ The word echoed a dozen times in her mind.

Brennan pushed the refrigerator door off of his body and desperately searched for a pulse. She couldn't find it at first, and she forced herself to calm down and try again. _There it is_. _Faint, but there._ He was breathing as well, she could tell now. _Just unconscious._ She scrambled for the phone and dialed 911. Once she had relayed the information to the dispatcher, she continued to assess Booth's condition.

The explosion had damaged her hearing temporarily, and her ears were ringing. When they finally stopped, she became aware of the sound of her own sobbing. Tears had been streaming down her face, and she wiped her face quickly. He had definitely broken a couple of ribs, perhaps his clavicle as well. But his head seemed alright. She ran her hands, so accustomed to analyzing bones, over Booth's arms and legs. Everything seemed to be in tact, save for a few burns and lacerations.

She needed him to wake up. Breathing or not, pulse or no pulse, she needed to see his eyes and hear his voice _now_.

"Booth!" Brennan shouted. Everything still sounded muffled as though her ears were stuffed with cotton. His must be as well. "Booth! Can you hear me? Wake up, Booth, come on!"

She fought the urge to shake him, knowing it would only cause him pain, but she stroked her hands against his face and pressed her lips to his carefully.

"Please, Booth. Come on…" She was sobbing again when the EMTs entered her apartment, but she managed to give them the information they needed and followed them to the ambulance. She rode with him to the hospital, calling Cullen on the way to tell him what happened and have him send a forensics team to her apartment. Under most circumstances, she'd have stayed to supervise, but there was no way she was leaving his side at that moment.

She told the staff who he was and what had happened, flat out refusing to wait anywhere but right next to his gurney. The doctor located Booth's digital chart quickly and turned to speak to her.

"Are you Dr. Temperance Brennan?"

"Yes."

"He's listed you as his emergency contact and medical proxy. You can stay, but you need to move out of the way when we ask, okay?"

Brennan nodded, a little dazed. _When had he made her is medical proxy?_ Booth hadn't said anything to her about it, and she watched his unconscious face through a blur of tears. It made sense of course; it was perfectly logical. His only other adult family members were an elderly man who lived hours away and his brother who was deployed with the Navy at the moment. Be that as it may, she couldn't help but feel humbled by his trust in her.

Booth regained consciousness a short while later, and she was there to hold his hand, watching his face screw up in pain.

"Bones…" he said faintly, eyes still squeezed shut.

"I'm right here, Booth. You're going to be okay."

"Are you okay?"

She sobbed again, remembering the moment the reality of the situation had caught up with her in the ambulance. That bomb had been meant for her.

"I'm fine. Everything's going to be fine. They're working on getting your pain under control. I was almost hoping you wouldn't wake up til a little later…"

"Me too," he panted through a clenched jaw.

Now that their patient was awake and in obvious pain, the hospital staff moved even faster to get his pain medication administered quickly.

"Ma'am, I need you to step out to the waiting room, please. Someone will be out to inform you of his condition shortly," a nurse told her politely. The woman had apparently not heard her conversation with the doctor.

"I'll move out of the way, but I'm not leaving," she replied firmly.

Booth felt the morphine start to take effect and opened his eyes blearily to search for her. Brennan had moved to stand a few feet away, but she stepped back into place next to him when he whispered her name hoarsely.

She held his hand again and brought it carefully to her lips for a moment. He moved it upward to wipe her tears away, and she closed her eyes in relief. _He was going to be okay._

The staff took him to radiology, and she went with him as far as she could, waiting in the hallway until they wheeled him back out. Next they took him to a private room and began the process of cleaning and bandaging his wounds. The morphine gave him the relief he needed, and he slept through the majority of the treatment.

It would be a few hours before he woke again. Brennan had parked herself next to his bed and refused to move. The staff eventually gave up trying to talk her into leaving and simply worked around her. She passed the time with calls to the squints, Cullen, and Hank. Angela offered to come to the hospital to keep her company, but Brennan refused, telling her that she needed everyone working to solve these cases. No one would be safe until they did.

Cullen gave her the preliminary findings from the forensics team and assured her that he would be putting more agents on the Cugini case so that they could find out what had happened.

"The Hamilton case too," she reminded him. "We're still not entirely sure that the two aren't connected somehow."

"Understood. I'm posting an agent outside of Booth's room, and Agent Kenton volunteered to keep an eye on you until we figure this thing out."

"I don't need a bodyguard," she started to argue.

"It's not up for discussion," he told her abruptly. "I'll let you know when I have anything new, and you do the same, alright?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you."

"Not at all. Take care of yourself."

Brennan was preparing to dial Hank's number when Booth's doctor entered the room carrying a file of x-ray films. She rose from her chair immediately and held out her hand.

"May I?"

"Uh… Sure," he answered uncertainly, handing her the file.

"I'm a forensic anthropologist," she explained. She moved to the light board mounted on the wall and switched it on, clipping couple of the films to its surface. She studied them carefully before replacing them with others. Brennan had insisted that they take films of his entire body so that nothing would be missed. It was disheartening to see evidence of so much past trauma, and she forced herself to keep a clinical eye, searching only for new injuries.

Once satisfied that he had been properly diagnosed and treated, Brennan looked back at the doctor, who had remained silent during her scrutiny.

"You can leave these here. I'll explain it to him when he wakes up. Was there anything else?"

"Um, no ma'am," the young man faltered. "Someone will round on him tomorrow morning, but the nursing staff can page me if there are changes." She nodded in understanding and watched him leave the room before returning to her phone call.

He sounded groggy when he answered, but he did at least pick up the phone.

"Hank, it's Temperance. I'm so sorry to wake you." She belatedly realized that it was now well past midnight, but she knew that he would want to know. Booth had trusted her with his medical decisions and information, but she had to assume that Hank had held those responsibilities before Booth changed things. He should be informed.

"Is everything okay?" Hank asked quickly, now awake and more than a little alarmed by her unexpected call.

"It will be, yes. But Booth was in an accident. He…" _How could she explain this in a way that wouldn't disturb him?_ "He's going to be fine, but he was injured at work. He has a couple of broken ribs and a broken clavicle, uh… collar bone. He's sleeping right now, but I thought you should know."

"What happened?"

"Um… someone planted a bomb in my refrigerator. Unfortunately Booth was the one who triggered it."

"A _bomb?_ "

"Yes. But he'll be okay," she repeated. "He's on morphine and not in any pain."

"Okay…" Hank seemed momentarily too shocked to form a coherent response.

"Again, I'm sorry I woke you. I just thought that if it were me, I'd want to know right away."

"Yes, of course. Thank you for calling… Wait, did you say there was a bomb in _your_ refrigerator?"

"Yes."

"So it was meant for you? Do you know who did it?"

"I assume that it was intended for me, yes. And we have reasonable evidence to indicate that it was someone connected to a mob case that we're working. We think it's also the same person who shot at me the other night."

" _Shot at you?"_ Hank sputtered, and Brennan nearly smacked herself in the forehead for disclosing too much information. He was an old man with a heart problem, and she was so exhausted from the shock and stress of the evening that she'd temporarily forgotten.

"Yes, but I'm okay too. In fact, no one was injured, so please don't worry. We're very close to solving the case, and both of us will now have armed agents guarding us at all times. Everything will be fine, Hank."

He sighed and grumbled a bit. "I can get up there to visit him tomorrow maybe. What hospital?"

"GW, but let's hold off on that for just a little while. I'm sure he'd like to spend time with you and that he would rather not be incapacitated by morphine when you're here. Not to mention that we can't put you in danger as well. He'll no doubt be out of work for a couple weeks, so you can come stay here for a couple of days while he's recovering."

"That's a great idea. Trust me, you'll need my help. Seeley can be a real pain in the ass when he's sick or recovering from something," Hank told her with a chuckle. Brennan smiled at his words as well as his laughter, relieved that the man didn't seem to be too worried anymore.

"He's certainly a man of action, so I can easily imagine that being restricted will put him in a bad mood," she agreed. "I'll let you know what days would work best for your visit once we find out when he'll be discharged, alright?"

"Yes, of course Sweetheart. Thank you for letting me know. I would imagine my grandson wouldn't have gotten to telling me about it for a month." Brennan could practically see him rolling his eyes toward the ceiling, and she smiled.

"Probably. I'll talk to you later, Hank. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, dear."

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When Booth stirred into wakefulness some time later, the sun was peeking just over the horizon, and a gorgeous brunette was sleeping with her head on his hospital bed. There was a recliner in the opposite corner, but apparently that had been too far away for her. She held his hand in hers, resting right next to her cheek. Since she was sleeping, it was fairly easy to extract his hand and move it to stroke her hair softly.

His pain was manageable as long as he didn't try to move, but he knew that it must be nearly time for more medication. Booth continued to thread his fingers through her silky hair, and when she did open her eyes, she registered the contact with surprise.

"You're awake," she announced, sitting up quickly.

"Yeah. You know, there's a recliner over there," he told her with a pained smile as he pointed at it.

"I know. And I tried it, but I couldn't hold your hand from that side of the bed, and that was more important to me than comfort. I only slept a few hours anyway," she answered him with a yawn.

Booth groaned as he shifted himself upward in the bed a little. Brennan placed a hand on his uninjured shoulder to keep him still.

"You need to move as little as possible for today, Booth," she chided him. He grunted and laid his head back.

"What's going on with the case?"

She filled him in as quickly and thoroughly as she could. As she'd expected, he disagreed with the notion that he needed a bodyguard but fully supported an agent following _her_ around every minute they were apart. She rolled her eyes for his benefit but didn't argue. She told him about the phone call with Hank and the visit they had tentatively planned since he would likely be out of work for a couple weeks.

" _Weeks?"_ He groaned. "No, that's ridiculous, Bones. It won't take me that long to heal, you'll see."

"It will take exactly as long as your doctor tells you to take and not a day less," she told him sternly. "It's not up for negotiation." He scowled at her petulantly but wisely held his tongue. _Smart man._

She filled him in on her discussion with Cullen and the information they had so far from the forensics team.

"I'm having Zack and Hodgins go over this morning to make sure the FBI didn't miss anything though."

Booth grinned at her typical distrust of the FBI forensics team, and for once he shared her skepticism. He realized that he too trusted her squints to do a better job.

"Kenton is on his way over," she told him, looking at the clock. "He's going to take me back home to change clothes and pack a bag. I brought some of your things with me last night though." She indicated a small bag on the bedside table. "Your gun and badge are in there. Your keys too."

"That reminds me…" He reached for the bag slowly and brought it to his lap, pulling out his keys. He found one particular key and used it to hand her the keyring. "Take that one off and put it on your keys. It's to my apartment," he told her with a happy, if pained, charm smile.

"Really?"

"Of course. You're there just as much as I am. You should have a key, especially for situations like this. Though I really hope we don't do _this_ very often..." Brennan felt a surge of warmth overwhelm her, and tears threatened her blue eyes.

"Thank you," she told him, managing to hold it together. "You're right that it's very logical to have keys to each other's apartments. I'll get one of mine made for you as soon as I can."

He nodded and winced as his broken ribs twinged. Brennan caught his expression and pressed the button for pain relief. He grunted at her a little, and she knew that he'd wanted to try to stay awake through the pain.

"I'm sorry, Booth. It should be me lying in that bed." The guilt on her face made his heart clench.

"Thank God it's not. I've never been so thankful for being injured."

"You got blown up, Booth," she reminded him, concerned that he might not understand the severity of the situation.

"I've been worse."

"You have burns, lacerations, two broken ribs, greenstick fracture of the clavicle-"

"Okay, I got blown up." He sighed and attempted to reach for a pudding container on the rolling table. She quickly pushed his hand back down and retrieved it herself, opening it before handing it to him along with a plastic spoon.

"Thanks, Bones."

She opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by a voice from the doorway.

"Hey," Kenton said in a polite tone.

"Yeah," Booth grumbled. Trusting his Bones to the care of someone else was _not_ something he wanted to do.

"You look like crap," Kenton teased.

"Yeah, well a little bit more of this pudding and I'll be just fine. _Stick with her_ ," he instructed.

"That's what I signed up for."

"Keep her close."

"Don't worry," he assured Booth. He turned to Brennan and said "Are you ready to go?"

"Yes," she replied in resignation. Having a bodyguard shadowing her every step was _not_ something she wanted to do. Kenton murmured that he'd wait for her outside, and Brennan leaned over Booth to kiss him gently. It lasted much longer than she'd intended, their mutual gratitude that they were both safe prolonging the contact. When she did eventually pull away, she smiled down at him and smoothed the hair away from his forehead affectionately.

"I'll let you know when we have something new. Your phone is in that bag with your other things."

He nodded and watched her leave the room. The medication was renewing the hazy feeling in his brain, and he fell asleep only minutes later.

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When they arrived at her apartment, the front door was standing open, and Kenton gestured at her to move behind him as he drew his weapon.

"It's just Zack and Hodgins," she explained. "They're doing a follow up analysis of the scene."

Kenton relaxed and holstered his gun, peeking into the apartment to confirm. He allowed her to enter first then and stood guard near the doorway while she collected what she needed. Zack and Hodgins waved at him politely but were more interested in talking to Brennan.

"Hey, Dr. B. How's Booth?"

"He'll recover. It could have been much worse. He was reaching for a glass from the cabinet, so he didn't get the direct impact of the explosion." She kept her tone business-like, glancing over the array of samples they'd collected and labeled.

They discussed the proficiency of the FBI team, which had been better than Hodgins had expected, no doubt thanks to Cullen and the fact that this involved one of their own. Brennan was glad to hear that everything was being handled satisfactorily. Sometimes Hodgins was even more of a stickler for diligence she was.

Having finished packing enough clothing for a week or so, plus a few other odds and ends, she headed for the door where Kenton was still waiting.

"If you have time later, you might pay Booth a visit. I hate that he's alone, but the sooner we get this case solved the sooner we're all safe again."

"No problem, I'll stop by later."

They said goodbye, and she returned to the lab with Kenton. For the most part, he merely watched her study the bones with a bland expression. He hovered but didn't speak or interrupt, and for that she was thankful. She needed to focus.

After Zack and Hodgins had completed the second sweep of her apartment, Hodgins set about the tedious chore of analyzing the various samples taken from the refrigerator and the other blackened surfaces of her kitchen. They had found only a handful of hairs and fibers that had not been picked up by FBI forensics, and he was running those as well.

Angela called Brennan and Zack into her office to discuss the recreation of the bullet that had killed James Cugini.

"It could have been you," Zack reminded Brennan.

"Yes, Zack, I know."

"The only reason he survived is that he was reaching for a glass."

"I know," she repeated, thinking for possibly the hundredth time that she had never been so thankful to have asked for a glass of water. "Can we change the subject?"

"Let's talk about revenge. Bloodlust," Angela spoke up.

"The cathartic release we're looking for can only be achieved when we successfully gather enough evidence to neutralize the person or persons responsible for putting Booth in that hospital." Brennan's voice was firm and clinical. If she was going to hold it together, she couldn't talk about this at work.

They watched the computer screen as Angela showed them what she'd achieved so far with the bullet recreation. It wasn't quite complete, but she had made excellent progress. Kenton seemed impressed.

Hodgins entered the room a moment later to report that the sulfur isotopes in the explosive residue were a perfect match for the sulfur manufactured at the chemical company where Hollings was employed.

Kenton left with Brennan immediately and headed toward Hollings' apartment. He called a tactical team on the way, in case of another bomb. She made a quick call to Booth to give him an update. Upon their arrival, it was immediately clear that Hollings was missing, but they wasted no time in nosing around the place, retrieving evidence and looking for some indicator as to where he might have gone.

Brennan found a map in a drawer next to the bed, and it was marked to indicate the same part of town where Penny Hamilton's body had been found.

"He's going after someone else," Kenton surmised, ordering the techs to bag everything from the man's bedroom. As they prepared to leave, Brennan got a call from Zack who reported that they had identified the exact key used to gouge the young woman's eyes. It had indeed been one that belonged to Hollings, and he'd never come back to retrieve his collection.

"Maybe you should come in now, Dr. Brennan," Zack said nervously. Brennan heard the concern in his voice but shrugged it off.

"I'll be fine, Zack. Any luck with the bullet?"

Before Zack could answer, Kenton approached her from behind and asked if she'd like to return to the lab, since it was safer. She decided to placate him and told Zack she would see him in a few minutes.

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Having given Brennan the lead on Hollings, Hodgins decided that to drop by Booth's hospital room. And apparently he was the last person Booth expected to see.

"Why are you here?" Booth demanded, panicking. "Is Brennan alright?"

"Sure, yeah," Hodgins reassured him quickly. "She's with your compadre. I came by to see how you are."

"Oh," Booth said, settling back painfully against the bed. In his panic, he'd moved without conscious thought, and the resulting pain had been delayed by adrenaline.

Hodgins made a show of trying to steal Booth's pudding, but Booth wanted to know what was going on with the case. He'd heard nothing since Brennan's earlier call about checking up on Hollings again.

"The key fit?" Booth asked anxiously.

"Yeah, and they found a map of the neighborhood where the other body was found. And some more keys."

"Found a map? No we didn't… We didn't catch that?"

"No, I guess not. Or maybe your killer is getting a little sloppy," Hodgins said with a shrug.

"That's not like him."

"Well it wasn't like him to use explosives either," he pointed out. "People change. It's the wonderful thing about life. Now we can get to him before he gets to Brennan." Hodgins made to snatch a different pudding cup from the table. "Can I have this one?"

Booth watched him open it, troubled by the way things weren't adding up.

"You okay?"

"Huh? Yeah… I'm just thinking that people don't really change. We like to believe they do, but they don't," Booth explained.

"You're thinking that it's the mob guys we're after," Hodgins guessed.

"I'm just thinking that things...they don't make sense." Booth was _not_ in the mood for Hodgins' wild theories.

"You're feeling something a little more devious, more like a frame up? Oh, I like it. Very conspiratorial."

Booth was ignoring him, unravelling the details in his mind to find the truth.

"Things are just too neat. You know Hollings would never leave a map there," Booth thought out loud. Hodgins continued to prattle on about mob and government conspiracies, but Booth tuned him out.

"Someone planted that evidence so that we'd find it. Someone who knew what we were up to."

Hodgins eyes lit up a bit brighter. "Someone at the lab works for the mob. I can see it. There's not much difference between a corrupt corporate government and organized crime…"

His words made something shift in Booth's mind. _Not someone at the lab. Someone at the FBI. Kenton's loyalties shifted during his time undercover._ A cold chill washed over him. Kenton was with Brennan at that very moment.

"You're right," Booth announced, throwing his pudding spoon on the table.

"Excuse me?" Hodgins wondered if he might be having an out of body experience.

"The only way that this could unfold is if someone on the inside was orchestrating things," he explained, ripping the pressure cuff off his arm. _No way in hell was he staying in that bed for another minute._

"People never tell me I'm right. They only say I'm crazy. Love you, man," Hodgins said, looking moved. But his expression turned to alarm when Booth started to rise from the bed.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"You're driving," he commanded, awkwardly slipping a shirt over his bare torso.

"Cool!"

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"Yeah?" Kenton was on his cell, with an unknown person. "Okay, make sure there's backup." He ended the call and turned to Brennan.

"They spotted someone taking a woman into those old abandoned buildings off Hunter Boulevard. I'll drop you off at the lab."

"No, I'm coming," Brennan insisted. Kenton eyed her for a moment, then shook his head.

"Booth said it was pointless to argue."

"He's a smart man, Booth. I'll just call Zack," she said, pulling out her cell phone. "I think I know how to complete the bullet. Even if we only have one side, if we can approximate the spin as it was fired…" She brought the phone up to her ear but was startled by the sound of Kenton's gun cocking.

She looked at him in shock, finding the end of his weapon pointing directly at her head. He knocked the phone out of her hand.

"You really are the best," he complimented her. "It's a shame."

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Booth was cursing under his breath as he held his phone to his ear, trying to get a hold of someone at the Hoover. Hodgins was calling Brennan.

"Work with the FBI, and they put you on hold when you want to get information," he grumbled. "Kenton was working organized crime at the same time that Cugini was killed. Alright, he was the only one who knew the details of both investigations. So he takes what he knows about Hollings to throw suspicions off himself." Booth groaned in pain when the car hit a pothole. _Who the hell drives a British clown car in DC?_

"Maybe that nurse was right to be pissed that you were leaving. You don't seem too good, Booth."

"You know if we weren't in a toy car…" he snarked back, before someone finally took him off hold. "Yeah, listen to me Bobby. Just get some units out there now, okay? I want to know about any activity in the abandoned buildings on that map."

Both men disconnected their calls at the same time.

"Brennan's not picking up her cell," Hodgins told him worriedly.

"Kenton, he never called for backup or surveillance or anything." Booth cursed at himself for probably the tenth time since leaving the hospital. "Geez, how can I be so stupid? Everything points to him…"

"Hey, it's not your fault."

"How could it _not_ be my fault? It's my job to protect her, and instead I hand her over to him."

Sickening images filled his mind and he tried to focus solely on the road in front of them. If anything happened to her, he'd never forgive himself.

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Kenton continued to hold his gun on her as he stopped the car at an abandoned warehouse, forced her out, bound her hands, and pushed her roughly through the building to a large room. He was running his mouth, and though Brennan was listening, she was also contemplating the best moment to knock the gun out of his hands.

"There are certain crimes you just gotta let slide," he told her, as if he thought he was teaching her something. "A death like Cugini's… It's an internal issue. Doesn't affect anyone else."

"You killed Cugini?" Booth's voice seemed to echo in her mind, _That's good, Bones. Keep him talking, keep him distracted._

"You don't get rich working for the FBI. When I was undercover, the Romanos were very good to me. When you accept their generosity, you have no choice but to do what they ask."

"Is that how you live with yourself? You take choice out of the equation?" They were moving through a hallway. _Not enough room to fight,_ she thought.

"It's no different than Booth taking someone from the other side out when he was a sniper in the Gulf."

She bristled at the idea of this man comparing his actions to Booth's, and she had to force herself to remain calm.

"That was a war. His actions saved lives." They had reached a doorway, and when Brennan saw what lay beyond it, she fought even harder against her own fear. Cages lined the walls of the large room, exactly as they had at Penny Hamilton's crime scene. They might have even been the same dogs.

"You don't think getting rid of Cugini ended a street war?" Kenton asked over the growling of the animals.

"So my death will be justified now?"

"The Bureau keeps a shell from every weapon it issues. You match that slug, it points to my weapon, and I go down. And the Romanos make sure I don't talk."

 _Just a little bit further_.

"Well at least I'm dying for a good reason." The second after the last word left her mouth, she elbowed Kenton hard in the stomach, and he staggered backward. Brennan turned quickly and swung a kick at the gun. It clattered to the floor, but he was recovering. Another kick brought him to the ground, and she moved swiftly for the door. Before she could put any distance between them, however, his arms came around her from behind. She ducked and swung out of his grip, aiming another kick in his direction before head butting him. The impact was painful, even through the haze of adrenaline.

Brennan spotted the gun on the floor and rolled over it to pick it up. When she rolled back to her feet, Kenton was behind her, wrestling the gun away from her and forcing her to the ground. She swung a leg against his to knock him down and clenched her legs tightly around his neck, hoping to strangle him. But he'd had enough. He reached for the gun and whipped it across her forehead.

She was out cold.

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As Brennan returned to consciousness, she became aware of several things at once. There was more pain in her head than she'd ever experienced-which was saying something. Blood was trickling down from her forehead. Her hands were still bound and were now tethered to a large hook above her head. She was sitting on a chair, and her ankles were tied to its front legs. And lastly, she was gagged with some sort of cloth tied around the back of her head.

He was circling her, still talking. Telling her that he'd killed Hollings. But Brennan barely heard him. She tried desperately to see a way out of this, but there was nothing. Booth thought Kenton was safe, and even if he somehow figured things out, he was stuck in the hospital. Kenton would kill her, the dogs would scavenge her body, and someone else would be identifying her remains eventually.

 _This can't be happening_ , she thought. Apart from her disbelief at the situation, there was overwhelming sorrow for what would be lost. _Booth_. He would blame himself for her death, for having been fooled by a rogue agent, and for allowing him to get close to her. The guilt would tear him apart so intensely that Brennan wasn't sure if anything would be able to bring him back from it. He'd track down Kenton and kill him, but it wouldn't be enough.

 _And Parker…_ She hadn't realized until this moment how eager she had been to see him grow up. To see if he would make something of the intellect he showed at just four years old. How would Booth's guilt affect his son? Hank? How would her death affect the team? The faces of her friends flashed quickly through her mind, and she felt another pang of regret to be leaving them as well. Tears streamed over her cheeks and blurred her vision of the dirty room.

"I'm sorry," Kenton told her, and this time she processed his words. "I really am." He was preparing the knife that he would use to spill enough of her blood to encourage the dogs. Then his gun was back in his hand, ready to draw back and hit her a second time.

"I'm not like him at all. The things I have to do to you… You'll be gone first. You'll never know a thing. I never expected anyone to find out."

She watched him draw back his hand and closed her eyes quickly. She didn't want to see it coming. _I love you, Booth_.

Brennan had scarcely completed the thought when a shot was fired. For an instant, she wondered if he'd changed his mind and shot her instead. But no… she was still alive. She opened her eyes in confusion and saw Kenton staggering backward, clutching his hand. She turned quickly to find the shooter and was overwhelmed by shock and gratitude.

 _Booth._

He limped over to her quickly, clearly in pain, and retrieved the knife from the ground. After he severed the rope around her ankles, he removed her gag and tried to lift her off the hook.

"Alright, okay, Hold on," he said, panting with stress and exertion. His injuries prevented him from using his arms to free her, so instead, he ducked his head between her raised arms and lifted her down. They collapsed to the floor, and he continued to sooth her as she clung to him.

"It's okay. I'm right here. It's all over, okay?" He made shushing noises as she sobbed into his neck. "I'm right here, alright? It's over… You're safe." After a moment or two, she was struck by the realization that he wasn't supposed to be there. She leaned back slightly to look at him but didn't remove her arms.

"How did you get out of the hospital?"

"Hodgins gave me a ride," he winced. "Maybe...maybe you could give me a ride back though, huh?"

She nodded at him and sobbed once more before kissing him with something akin to desperation. He returned it as well as he could, given the pain he was in. When she moved back to hug him again, she laid her head on his shoulder and held him as though she might never let go.

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They bickered back and forth over who should be treated first by the paramedics as the left the building. She was supporting a good deal of his weight in spite of the residual weakness the experience had left in her. Booth successfully argued that his injuries had been treated and that all he really needed was a lift back to the hospital. Brennan on other hand, had a bleeding head wound.

The medics sided with Booth and recommended she get a head CT as soon as possible. One of the EMTs wanted to wait for a second ambulance to transport Booth, but Brennan told them in no uncertain terms that they would not be separated. She asked Hodgins to retrieve her cell phone and other personal items from the floor of Kenton's SUV, and once he'd returned them to her, he followed the ambulance to the hospital.

Brennan very much wanted to be alone with Booth, to tell him all of the things that had gone through her mind during what she'd thought were her final moments. To thank him for saving her life, to kiss him, to hold him, and to do so without the audience of medical professionals. She knew she would need to be patient and settle for holding his hand as the vehicle bounced around, making him wince.

Booth was feeling a similar impatience, as well as an overload of other emotions. Guilt, relief, anger… and love. _God, he loved her so much._ He had spent every spare second in Hodgins' car begging God to spare her, to allow him to get to her in time. Now he was thanking Him that she was safe. But he didn't close his eyes as he usually did while praying. He looked at her. His eyes raked over every inch of her, cataloging her injuries and feeling his guilt and anger increase with each one that he found. Her head injury was the worst, even though the medic had stopped the worst of the bleeding. She moved as though she was bruised and sore in other places beneath her clothing as well.

When at last the torturous ambulance ride was concluded, Booth allowed the hospital staff to wheel him back to his room with the stipulation that Brennan's injuries could be treated there. He refused to let her out of his sight, and for once she agreed, not wanting to be separated from him.

As were each checked over by different doctors, their gazes never left one another for more than a few seconds. He asked her doctor about her head wound; she asked his about his fractures. Both needed to visit radiology: Booth for new x-rays and Brennan for a head CT. They made that trip together as well and were separated only for as long as it took to complete the scans.

Brennan's scan was clear of bleeds or swelling, so she was prescribed pain medication and instructed to follow up with her own doctor. Booth, on the other hand, would still be hospitalized for at least another day. He groaned in disgust with the situation. He greatly would have liked to skip this part. Though he tended to heal quickly, being incapacitated for any length of time was aggravating.

The night nurse insisted on wheeling a cot into the room for Brennan when she refused to go home to rest, and once they were medicated, they were finally left alone to eat dinner. Brennan ignored the cot, instead perching herself on she side of Booth's bed and helping him manage his food. His mobility was even more limited than it had been that morning.

"Bones... " he began, his voice hitching a little with emotion. "I let you down. I'm so sorry, baby." Brennan's eyes widened in alarm.

"You saved my life, Booth. If you hadn't figured out the truth, I'd be dead right now." Her chest ached to see the guilt and torment in his brown eyes, and she leaned forward to kiss him gently, but fervently. "He fooled us all. It wasn't your fault. _None_ of it was your fault."

Booth gazed at her beautiful eyes, filling with unshed tears, and he swallowed back tears of his own before reaching his hand up to stroke her cheek.

"I love you, baby. I was so afraid I'd be too late. That I'd lose you, that…" His arm lowered weakly and captured her hand instead.

"I love you too," she told him softly, wiping his eyes with her free hand. "I was… I was scared too. I thought of you. That if I died you would let your guilt change you into someone else. That you would never forgive yourself for what happened even though you weren't the one responsible."

He nodded soberly. It was the absolute truth. He didn't have to ask her for more details because they'd been in his mind too. He would've killed Kenton and drowned himself in scotch, probably returned to gambling too.

"I thought of Parker," she said in a small voice. Booth blinked at her in surprise. "I hated that I'd never get to see him grow up. I didn't even know I wanted that so badly until I thought I wouldn't be able to have it." She sniffled and wiped the tears from her face. "And everyone at the lab," _sob_ "that they would," _sob_ "be the ones to identify…" She cried harder, her chest aching with emotion. Booth pulled her to him and wrapped his arm around her trembling shoulders. Hot tears fell from his face and into her hair, and this time he didn't try to brush them away.

Booth cursed the sling he'd been strapped back into for preventing him to embrace her completely. She needed him, and he hated that he couldn't give her as much physical comfort as he would've liked. But Brennan didn't mind. She could feel his warmth against her skin, hear him breathing, smell the scent that was only his.

It was everything she needed.

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When at last they had both cried themselves into a state of medicated exhaustion, Booth scooted himself as far to one side as possible and motioned for her to lay down next to him. Brennan was all too happy to comply, stretching out on his uninjured side and placing her right arm gently across his stomach. His right arm cradled her head and wrapped around her shoulders. While they were being patched up by the staff, Angela had brought over the bag Brennan had packed that morning and left in her office, and Brennan was thankful to have something other than a hospital gown to sleep in. Booth was grateful that he could easily touch the skin of her upper arm, and he stroked delicate patterns across it.

He knew they'd be asleep fairly quickly, but he thought it might not be a bad idea to get their minds onto other things before trying to sleep. He recoiled mentally from the expectation of what his dreams would look like tonight. Hopefully the medication they had both taken would help them sleep soundly. Booth switched on the TV for some distraction, flipping through the channels until he found The Grapes of Wrath. He remembered her fondness of old movies, so he set the remote down behind her and smiled down at her when she looked up at him.

"I forgot to ask you this morning," she said after a few minutes of the movie. He looked down at her questioningly. "When did you designate me as your medical proxy and emergency contact?" His smile was quick and affectionate.

"A little while before we got together," he told her. She looked surprised, so he continued, "It was around the time that I realized how completely head over heels in love with you I'd fallen. We have to verify our personal information every six months at the Bureau, and it seemed like the wise thing to do. Pops really couldn't do much in an emergency, and I hated the thought of him having to make decisions on my behalf. But… I trusted you. I knew you'd do right by me whether we ever made things official or not. So I changed it."

Brennan was surprised that he'd had so much faith in her even before they'd come together as a couple. Emergency planning wasn't something she thought about unless some person or circumstance brought it to the forefront of her mind, but she agreed with his logic wholeheartedly.

"Thank you for trusting me," she said, pressing her lips to his bare chest. As soon as she could, she would change her emergency medical information as well. She trusted Booth's ability to make decisions with a bit of a clearer head than Angela might be able to do. He knew her better, understood the way she felt and thought.

They eventually drifted to sleep, though the movie played on. The night nurse returned to check his vitals and make sure he was resting comfortably, but the woman was startled to find _two_ occupants in his bed. She knew that a guest sharing a bed with a patient violated hospital policies, but she was a romantic. She went about her business quietly and gently, doing her best not to disturb them. She even pulled the blanket a little more securely around Brennan. It was then that she felt his eyes on her, and when she looked up at his face, he smiled a little at her and mouthed a 'thank you.' She nodded and left the room, glancing back at them only once to see her patient placing a gentle kiss on the woman's forehead.

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"Booth, it's fine. I had the bomb squad clear every inch," she reassured him as they opened his front door.

"Okay. Sorry, I don't mean to be… I don't know-"

"An alpha male?" Brennan joked, guiding him slowly to the couch. He'd been going on endlessly about how her head was feeling, if she was hurting anywhere else, if she'd taken her pain pills, if she thought perhaps she should call Angela to help her get things settled at his place. On and on it went. And she let him do it. She answered every question patiently, even if it was the fourth or fifth time he was asking something. His alpha male personality had saved her life, and she would never wish him to be anything else.

"I think you should rest in bed for now, Booth. Your medication is likely to make you drowsy, and sleeping on the couch won't offer enough support."

"Whatever you say, baby. You're the boss," he told her, slurring his words slightly.

Brennan studied him for a moment, noting the change. He'd been relentlessly questioning and worrying on the way home, but now she realized that he had started to look a little dazed. Her brow furrowed. The doctor had warned her that the morphine should be out of his system, and she knew that the Vicodin should kick in fairly quickly. Though he had offered to keep Booth a little longer to make sure his pain was under control, Booth had refused and told him rather bluntly that he was going home. He'd already been forced to stay an additional day longer than originally planned, thanks to what his nurse had called his 'lunatic field trip.' Apparently Booth had shouted at quite a few people as he'd left with Hodgins.

"Stay here a moment, I'm going to get things set up for you in the bedroom, okay?" She waited until he nodded before leaving the room. It only took her a few minutes to arrange the pillows so that he could sit up comfortably, place a bottle of water on the nightstand, and locate the remote.

When she returned to the living room, he was still on the couch, but he was looking at her with an expression that was almost… giddy.

"Are you alright?"

"Hell yeah, baby, I'm awesome."

Brennan was slightly confused until she remembered the Vicodin. She'd never seen Booth on narcotic pain medication, but she did recall Hank describing him as a 'pain in the ass' when he was ill or injured. She had thought he'd meant that Booth was cranky or sullen.

"Okay, let's move to the bedroom then. Do you need help standing?"

"Mmmm, you gonna take me to the bedroom, huh? That sounds _nice_." He swayed on his feet a little once he was off the couch, and he looked at her the way she'd occasionally seen him look at a piece of pie.

"Booth, don't be ridiculous. You need to rest. There's no possible way you're healthy enough for sex."

"Says you," he argued playfully.

"Says me, your doctor, and basic common sense." She looped his arm around her shoulder and walked him slowly down the hallway. His hand brushed against her breast in a manner that was clearly intentional, and she rolled her eyes upward to look at his face. His eyes were focused hungrily on her cleavage.

They made it into the bedroom, and she eased him onto the bed, helping him to find a comfortable position against the stack of pillows she'd made.

"Why don't you join me?" Booth asked in a rather dreamy voice, catching a fistful of her shirt and giving it a tug.

"I will in a little while, Booth. There are some things that need done first." He allowed her to pry his fingers loose from her shirt only to snake his hand beneath it a half second later. _This was going to be a long week._

"Come on, Bones, whatever it is can wait, right? Lay down with me… Please?" Booth made a good effort at a pouty face, but his smile returned almost instantly. Brennan fought to stifle her own grin and shook her head.

"Not yet. Lay back, here's the remote," she said, handing it to him. He beamed at her and quickly found a hockey game that was being re-aired. Brennan sighed quietly, glad that his attention was on something else. Getting him to take it easy would be trickier than she'd expected if this was what the medication did to him.

She left the room to locate their cell phones, intending to place his next to him when she returned. Brennan went to the kitchen next and opened the refrigerator very slowly. She may have just finished telling Booth that the place had been cleared, but she couldn't look at a refrigerator without remembering him lying on her kitchen floor, unconscious and on fire. She shuddered involuntarily and focused her attention on what they would need from the store. Angela had offered to pick up some things for them on her way home from the lab that evening, but she quickly saw that lunch would probably need to consist of takeout. He'd needed to make a trip to the store even before his hospital stay. Hopefully Angela wouldn't mind a longer list. Parker and Hank were both due to arrive tomorrow morning, so they needed even more than usual.

The memory of Hank's plans to visit reminded her that she had intended to work on solving the sleeping arrangement issue. Her own injuries had temporarily driven those intentions from her mind. She decided to wait until Booth was sleeping before getting started on _those_ plans.

Brennan grabbed a few other things, checked the locks on the front door, and headed back toward the bedroom. When she was halfway down the hall she heard what sounded suspiciously like _giggling_. She stopped just outside of his doorway and out of sight, slapping a hand to her mouth and trying desperately not to laugh. She realized that the TV was no longer showing a hockey game but had instead been switched to cartoons. And, sure enough-

Booth was giggling. Like a little girl.

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Brennan was trying very hard to be patient, but he was testing her. He'd almost completely stopped talking to her face and was now addressing the majority of his comments directly to her breasts. His free hand had slapped her ass more than once, and the words coming out of his mouth were making her blush. She had the feeling he had picked up a lot of his colorful vocabulary in the army.

That particular suspicion was confirmed when, after she'd finally resorted to raising her voice to tell him to behave, he adopted a somber expression and began to sing a song about beer being better than women. It had the feel of an army drinking ballad.

" _Well a beer doesn't care if you belch or you fart  
_ _A beer doesn't play hard to get  
_ _A beer doesn't think the Three Stooges are dumb  
_ _And a beer's always ready...and wet"_

Booth continued to sing through several verses before he seemed to lose his train of thought. He grinned stupidly up at her face then.

"Bones, can you get me a beer?"

She laughed at him wearily and shook her head.

"You can't mix your medication with alcohol. But if you're thirsty there's some water right next to you."

"No, I want beer. Just one won't hurt, come on," he whined.

"No, Booth. Drink your water." She grinned wider at his petulant scowl and decided to change the subject.

"Why don't you think about what you want for lunch. I thought we could order in since you don't have much in the fridge at the moment."

"Oh! We can go to the store! That'll be awesome. They have beer!"

"I'm sure they do, but Angela is going to make a grocery trip for us after she leaves work later."

"That's nice of her."

"Yes. Now figure out what you'd like to order for lunch. You're going to need another pill in the next couple of hours."

"Okay, baby…." His eyes flickered back to the television where Donald and Daffy Duck were engaging in a piano battle. She felt she'd seen this show before, but she couldn't place it. Booth seemed distracted for the moment though, so she sat on the opposite side of the bed and started a grocery list.

Not five minutes passed before his hand was wandering over the swell of her breasts.

"Booth!" She smacked his hand away and turned to find him licking his lips contemplatively.

"I always liked this movie," he said, as if it explained his actions perfectly. Confused, her eyes returned to the television. The scene was rather different now. An animated woman with unrealistically large breasts was singing and dancing in a sparkling dress. The movie was an odd mixture of animated and live action characters. Brennan could easily understand why a teenage boy would thoroughly enjoy the film.

"I can see why," she replied dryly.

"Come on, don't tell me you've never seen ' _Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'_ " He looked astonished, and she shook her head in the negative. He proceeded to give her a long-winded description of the plot, and by the time he stopped talking, she'd finished her shopping list and emailed it to Angela. She managed to get him to commit to Wong Foo's for lunch and left the room to place the call. When she returned, he was laying against the pillows with his eyes closed, and his expression was pained.

"Time for more medicine?" Brennan asked gently.

"Not yet. Maybe after lunch. If I take it on a full stomach it doesn't make me as…"

"Crazy?"

Booth squinted at her a little, wondering if she was making fun of him. He had started to come down from his high as he explained the premise of the movie, and he'd known the return of the pain would not be far behind. She sat down next to him on the edge of the bed, stroking a hand lovingly against his cheek. He sighed happily.

"Does Vicodin always affect you that way?"

"Only the first few doses. I seem to build up a decent tolerance after that. But that also means that it doesn't take care of the pain as well either."

"Well, I hate that you'll be in pain, but it's probably for the best. Parker will be here this weekend. Hank too. You certainly can't be groping me in front of them or singing lewd drinking songs," she teased lightly. He grinned.

"Sorry about that," he said, looking anything but apologetic. "I guess I forgot to warn you that I don't handle narcotics so well."

"I guess you did," she chuckled. She thought it was probably safe to give him a quick kiss at this point, and she leaned over him to brush her lips against his. He responded immediately and urged her lips apart, sweeping his tongue skillfully against hers. _Too much more of that and things would get out of hand in a hurry,_ she thought regretfully.

Booth pouted when she pulled away, smirking at him. The doorbell rang then, and she left the room quickly to answer it and pay for their food. Brennan grabbed a couple of plates and fresh bottles of water before returning to the bedroom. Booth had managed to sit himself in a more upright position so that they could eat, and he watched her set everything up as though preparing a picnic.

"How's your head feeling? You need more medicine too?" Booth asked, having noticed her wincing slightly as she bent to retrieve something from the floor.

"It's not bad. Just hurts to move it in certain ways. I'll take another pill later."

"Don't go without on my account, Bones. You're healing too."

"I know, Booth. I won't," she promised, smiling that happy, crooked smile that he adored. He returned it and continued to eat. Once they'd finished, he took another Vicodin and badgered her a bit about taking one of her pills as well. She compromised and took half. Brennan needed to be awake while he was, especially while the Vicodin was having such an effect on him.

She cleaned up the lunch leftovers and stored them in the refrigerator. She'd ordered their usual, but Booth's appetite had been diminished over the last few days, and he'd not eaten even half of his typical volume. Brennan knew that this was a natural consequence of his injuries and the medications he'd been given, but she still found herself anxious to see him get back to normal.

When at last he dozed off, Brennan got to work on preparing Booth's home for his son and grandfather to visit. The first order of business was a new bed in Parker's room. At first, she considered a twin over full bunk bed, but Parker was still very young. She wasn't sure if he was old enough to sleep on a top bunk without rolling out somehow. And all of the ones she looked at did seem very high off the ground. So she switched tactics and looked instead for a trundle bed, and she quickly found one that could simply be added to his existing bed frame. Hank could sleep on the upper portion, and Parker could take the trundle. It would allow for an emergency guest space in the future as well. She called around to a few furniture stores and found one that would deliver and assemble the bed the following morning.

Booth napped for an hour or so and woke in his intoxicated state once more. Brennan had given up trying to get him to behave and settled for making sure he didn't hurt himself with his antics. He mostly just tried to talk her into having sex, filling her head with images of the provocative things he was describing, and she promised him that when he'd fully recovered, they could do every single one of them. It wasn't long before his clever mind found an alternative to suggest.

"You know, I bet if we did it in the bathtub, the warm water would keep my chest from hurting," he said. His tone was very convincing, and perhaps if her medication affected her in the same way, she might have even considered it. But that was not the case.

"Booth, don't be absurd. If you want to take a bath, I'll help you. But we're most definitely _not_ having sex in the tub any time soon," she told him firmly.

Her phone rang, and she checked the caller ID before answering.

"Hey, Ange."

"Hey, Sweetie. I got your email, and I'm headed to the store. I just wanted to make sure you didn't have anything to add."

" _Tell Angela to get beer!"_ Booth shouted from the background. Brennan ignored him.

"No, I think that's all. I'm sorry it's so long; Booth didn't have much here.

"No problem," she answered, chuckling at what she'd heard. "Can Booth even have beer right now?"

"No, but he thinks he can," Brennan answered. Before Angela could reply, Booth was shouting again.

" _Come on, Bones! I'm getting the bathtub ready!"_

Momentarily forgetting about Angela, she shouted right back at him, "Booth for the last time, we can _not_ have sex right now!"

Angela chortled, but Brennan's attention was on the sound of water running.

"Turn the water off! Damn it." She belatedly realized that she was still holding her cell in her hand, and her friend was roaring with laughter on the other end. "Ange, I have to go. The front door will be unlocked when you get here."

"Okay, bye," Angela said breathlessly. Brennan hung up the phone and made for the master bathroom.

Booth was attempting to get his shirt off without removing his sling. She cursed under her breath and encouraged him gently to pull it back into place.

"Did you tell her to get beer?"

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 **I had a lot of fun with the last scenes of this chapter. I just love Booth on Vicodin...**


	20. Chapter 20

**I'm back! So glad everyone enjoyed the last chapter. It was one of the hardest and most fun to write so far. I forgot to mention that I didn't make up that army drinking song. I found it on a forum for veterans. It was pretty long, but I just used my favorite verse. If you want to read the whole thing, you can probably just google 'Beer is Better Than Women.'**

 **This chapter is Pops and Parker heavy, so plenty of fluffy cuteness. Brennan also meets Rebecca officially. Oh, and smut alert for the second scene. Enjoy!**

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Chapter 20

Angela showed up around six with not only their groceries but also Hodgins. She'd solicited his help to carry everything, and it was clear in his expression that Angela had told him exactly what she'd heard on the phone. Luckily, Booth had nodded off again and was still asleep.

"Hey, Dr. B," he said cheerfully, setting grocery bags on Booth's kitchen counter. "You have a bit of a rough day?"

Brennan glared slightly at him, unamused. Angela merely laughed.

"You get to tell him that I didn't buy beer," she advised Brennan.

"Right. Thanks for your help, Ange. We really appreciate it. There was really no way I would've been able to leave him alone for long enough to run to the store, and it had to be done today."

"It's no problem, Sweetie. I'm happy to help. Is there anything else you need? Parker and Hank are coming over tomorrow, right?"

"Yes. I don't really know what Hank likes to eat, but if there's something he wants that we don't have, I can always go pick it up once he's here to keep an eye on Booth."

"You make it sound like he's a badly behaved three-year-old," Hodgins snickered. Angela joined in.

"With the libido of a teenage boy, apparently."

"Yes, well… Let's hope he doesn't 'behave badly' in front of his son tomorrow," Brennan retorted. It had been worrying her a little. Rebecca seemed to be overly critical of Booth most of the time, and she didn't want anything to make matters worse when it came to Parker's visitation schedule. Hopefully Hank's presence would balance things out.

"I agree. Let me know how it goes, okay?" Angela told her before pulling her friend into a gentle hug. "Your head is feeling better? You're taking care of yourself too, right?"

"Yes, it's fine," she answered with a roll of her eyes. "Just a residual headache, nothing some aspirin can't manage." Angela nodded, satisfied.

Brennan waved her friends out the door and got to work in the kitchen putting everything away. She wasn't quite sure what Booth would want for dinner, as some pain medications were known to induce nausea. She tiptoed to the bedroom door and eyed him cautiously. His eyes were closed, but she got the feeling he wasn't entirely asleep.

As if on cue, he opened his eyes to gaze across the room at her sleepily. It wasn't time for another pill yet, but he didn't feel quite as disoriented as before.

"Hey," he said softly, eyes still half-closed.

"Hey." Brennan sat down on the bed next to him, checking the state of the wrap supporting his cracked ribs. He smiled at her appreciatively and moved his hand up to the bandage on her forehead, gently pressing his fingertips to the edges to make sure it was secure. Satisfied, he lowered his hand to cup her cheek affectionately.

"God, you're beautiful," he told her. The words gushed out of him as though he was simply unable to keep them in. She smirked at him a little.

"Still feeling high?"

"No. Just telling the truth."

Brennan shook her head and grinned at him. She knew that she was an empirically attractive woman, but there was something about the way Booth looked at her at times like this that made her feel different in a ways that no one else had achieved. She felt special. Humbled by his admiration. Honored by his praise.

"If I lay down next to you, will you behave yourself?" Brennan asked teasingly. His eyes sparkled at her, and his charm smile stretched widely across his face.

"No promises."

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As Booth had expected, his following few doses of the vicodin affected him less and less. And by the time he needed to shower and change for their guests the next morning, he was nearly himself. However, this did not stop him from propositioning his girlfriend for some ' _extra help'_ in the shower, beyond that of merely washing.

"Booth, it could put too much strain on your fractures," Brennan chided him gently. But he was kissing her in that heart-stopping way only he could do, and she found herself trying to come up with a compromise.

Booth was frustrated with the situation. He'd been spoiled by the freedom to make love to her nearly every day, often more than once, and now to have that taken away felt cruel. He had convinced her to get in the shower with him to help him wash more effectively, but she had only agreed when he'd promised to behave himself. There was no missing his arousal, however. He had spent a good part of the previous day trying to get her into bed, and now to have her naked body so close to his, he found it impossible to resist her.

He kissed her only lightly at first, and she had welcomed it, returned it gently. But within seconds, he deepened the kiss, wrapping his right arm around her waist to pull her tightly against him. Her hands crept up to frame his face, and her mouth opened to the gentle probing of his tongue. Stirrings of desire were singing though her own body as well, and she contemplated a solution that wouldn't hurt him.

"Turn around," she commanded softly against his lips. He pulled back to look at her questioningly, and at her nod of encouragement, he complied. Booth was now facing away from the stream of water, but her smaller frame didn't block the spray completely. He wasn't sure of her intent until he felt her slender hands gliding around his hips. She pressed her breasts into the skin of his back, allowing her left hand to rest on his abdomen and the other to reach low enough to take his hard length into her hand.

Booth gasped at her touch. Could she possibly know how many times he'd fantasized about her in this very shower? Ever since that first kiss, she was the girl his mind always settled upon when seeking a physical release. In the year that passed between their meeting and becoming partners, she had been the object of his imagination too many times to count. And more than once, he had imagined her just like this.

Brennan moved her hand rhythmically, loving the sounds that she could pull from him. His breathing accelerated, and he reached his right arm upward to grip the shower rod for support.

"Oh God, Bones," he moaned deeply. "Do you have any idea how often I've thought of you just like this?"

This surprised her slightly, though upon further consideration, she supposed that it shouldn't. She'd felt his desire pressing against her several times in the months before they became a couple. And she had certainly thought of him when _she_ pleasured herself.

"How many times?" Brennan asked, using that low sultry tone designed to make him insane with want.

"Too many to count. Ever since that first night, in the rain. You're the only one I ever think about. Or dream about. Or fantasize about."

Brennan's mouth opened slightly. He'd been fantasizing about her for a year and a half? _Wow_.

"I thought of you too," she told him. "When I touched myself, before we were together. I shouted your name when I came, imagining that it was _you_ touching me." Booth groaned loudly, and her hand moved faster. "Sometimes I would think back to that first morning that we woke up together in my bed, when I felt you so hard against me. And I wished that you had simply removed my clothing and entered me from behind. With your arms wrapped around me and your mouth on my neck…"

" _Fuck_ , that's hot, baby." Booth gasped. He knew he was close, and she seemed to as well, because her hand stroked him faster still.

"Come for me, Booth. I need to feel you, coming hard because of me. Just for me."

He exploded at her command, shouting her name and trembling in her arms as waves of delicious pleasure wracked his body again and again. When at last the tremors subsided, he lowered his hand from the curtain rod and turned to face her. The smile on her face was gloating and adorable, and she looked incredibly pleased with herself. He returned her grin happily and brought his lips to hers again.

"Thank you," he murmured into her mouth.

"You're quite welcome." The water became notably cooler, and she sighed ruefully. He echoed her chagrin.

"If we hurry, we can take care of you too."

"There isn't time. But maybe later."

"I won't forget," he replied, his eyes gleaming. She turned off the water and helped him dry carefully around his left shoulder and chest.

"I'm sure, but it might depend on how soundly Hank and Parker sleep," she added with a wink.

Booth made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a groan and pulled her once more into a kiss. Temperance Brennan was many things. _Quiet in bed_ was not one of them.

"Come on, Hank will be here soon. We should probably try not to look like we just got out of bed."

Booth followed her into the bedroom and allowed her to re-wrap his fractured ribs. Perhaps he could find a way to suggest that Pops turn off his hearing aid tonight…

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As soon as Booth was settled on the couch with the remote, Brennan disappeared into Parker's room. The sheets on his bed were clean since his last visit, but she thought perhaps Hank might like to sleep on linens that didn't have cartoon characters on them. Before leaving the room, she checked beneath the bed to make sure nothing would be in the way of the trundle frame and mattress that would be delivered shortly.

Only seconds after she re-entered the living room, a knock sounded at the door. Booth moved to get up, but she waved him back down.

"Hello, darlin'!" Hank greeted her. His eyes narrowed at the bandage on her forehead, but he didn't comment.

"Hi, Hank," she replied as he pulled her into a hug. His actions caught her off guard for a moment, but then she relaxed and smiled over his shoulder.

"We hug in this family," he told her seriously. She nodded and smiled, moving aside so that he could come in. She took hold of his suitcase and began to roll it toward Parker's bedroom while Hank approached Booth.

"You look better than I expected, Shrimp."

"Well, I've been very well taken care of," Booth assured him, glancing in the direction in which Brennan had disappeared.

"I can see that. What happened to her head? She only told me you were hurt; she didn't say anything about herself." Hank had been worried when Brennan had called in the middle of the night to report that his grandson had been injured by a _bomb_ of all things. Not that he didn't know Booth's job was dangerous, but Hank had always assumed that if anything, it would be a gunshot wound that Booth would have to deal with. The idea that someone had broken into Brennan's home and planted a bomb was disturbing.

"Oh, yeah, I guess neither of us got in touch with you after…"

"After what?" Hank prodded sternly.

But at that moment, Brennan reappeared to ask if Hank would like anything to eat or drink.

"No, I'm just fine, Temperance. Come and have a seat, huh? Shrimp here was about to explain how you got hurt."

Brennan met Hank's gaze before flickering to Booth's. She'd forgotten that Hank only knew half of the story, and she didn't particularly want to have this conversation right now. Medication had ensured sound sleep the first night after her kidnapping, but she'd had a nightmare last night. She'd slept very little afterward, and she wasn't sure she was up for a retelling. Booth seemed to read her indecision in her eyes.

"Uh, it's kind of a long story, Pops-"

"Well then I guess it's a good thing I'm here all weekend," he interrupted. Booth opened his mouth to reply but a second knock at the door stopped him. He glanced at the clock, knowing it was a little early for Parker to be there yet.

Brennan moved to open the door again, grateful for the distraction. She greeted the two young delivery men politely and verified that they had the correct address. She showed them quickly where the bed needed to be set up, and they returned to the truck to retrieve it. Booth and Hank wore identical expressions of confusion, and she chuckled a little.

"I guess I never got around to telling you," she addressed Booth apologetically. "I didn't want Hank to be stuck on an uncomfortable couch all weekend, so I ordered something while you were napping yesterday."

"You ordered a bed?" Booth asked, slightly shocked.

"Yes, well...sort of. At first I thought perhaps a bunk bed with a full size bottom bunk would work well, but I wasn't sure that Parker was old enough to sleep so high off the ground. But then I found a trundle bed that will roll away under his current bed frame when it's not in use…" She realized belatedly that she was rambling a little, but when she paused to take a breath, she noticed that both men were smiling warmly at her.

"Bones… that's extremely thoughtful of you," he told her softly. Booth rose from the couch slowly, ignoring her instructions to remain seated, and crossed the room to pull her into a half-embrace. He cursed the sling he was still required to wear, but she didn't mind. She smiled up at him shyly, and to her surprise, he kissed her softly without hesitation.

"Thank you," he said once he'd lifted his lips from hers.

"You're welcome."

"Should I even bother asking how much you spent?" Booth asked jokingly.

"No. It's a gift. Deal with it," she answered. They didn't argue about money, but she knew that he occasionally felt a bit uncomfortable when he was reminded that her book was selling _very_ well. She wasn't one to throw her money around, but she liked to do nice things for the important people in her life. And aside from the occasional gift and her charitable contributions, the money mostly sat untouched in the bank.

Booth laughed and shook his head, feeling yet again like the luckiest man in the world, because she was his.

Hank watched the two of them affectionately, noting the way their hands were still clasped together as they spoke. Not to mention the way his grandson positively glowed with happiness and love when he looked at Brennan. He couldn't remember ever having seen Booth so happy.

"You have my appreciation too, Sweetheart," he spoke up eventually. Brennan looked back at him and smiled.

"You're very welcome. I figured this way, Parker's room could always double as a guest room when necessary. Not that you couldn't still stay with us at my place, but it's being cleaned up right now."

"That's a wonderful idea," Hank nodded in approval.

The front door opened then, and the delivery men carried in a long box presumably containing the bed pieces as well as a twin size mattress. Brennan followed them into Parker's room to make sure they had the space they needed, and Booth's eyes trailed after her. She'd dressed casually in a pair of slim-fitting jeans and an equally close-fitting blue shirt. It wasn't low cut by any means, but the color was beautiful against her pale skin. And her jeans hugged her curves in ways that made him wish they'd had a lot more time alone together that morning.

Booth pulled his gaze away before his attraction to her caused a problem he couldn't hide, and he returned to the couch with a grunt. His collarbone was aching, but it wasn't quite time for more medication.

"So… we got interrupted before. I get the feeling that 'long story' is one that my great-grandson probably shouldn't hear, so why don't you tell me know."

Booth sighed and rubbed his free hand on the back of his neck, considering how much detail his grandfather really needed.

"We were working with another agent on the mob case. He'd been undercover with them a few years back, and he had experience with another suspect we were tracking too. She told you she was shot at?" Booth asked quietly. Hank nodded. "Well, we figured out too late that the person who'd shot at her _and_ put a bomb in her refrigerator was the same agent we were trusting to help us solve two murders that _he'd_ committed. When I got stuck in the hospital, she needed someone to have her back while she kept working to solve the case. And… I was an idiot, Pops. I didn't see it until it was almost too late."

"So this guy… hurt her?"

"He was going to kill her, Pops. If I'd been just a second later…" Booth's voice faded into a choked whisper, and the guilt on his face was plain.

" _You_ saved her? I thought you were in the hospital?"

"I was. I checked myself out, and a friend gave me a ride to the place we figured out he'd taken her. It was an abandoned warehouse." Booth's eyes glazed, reliving the nightmarish scene. "He was going to kill her and feed her body to a bunch of dogs."

Hank looked shocked, and for several moments, he wasn't sure how to respond. He knew that his grandson would have been devastated if he'd lost Brennan, but it was also very clear to him that Booth was feeling guilty for her being in that position in the first place.

"It's not your fault, Seeley," he told him sternly. "I can tell you're blaming yourself for her getting hurt, but it had nothing to do with you. It was because she was getting close to figuring out who he was, right? That's why he was trying to kill her?"

Booth nodded, but his tortured expression didn't fade.

"But _I_ let her leave with him, Pops. I didn't see what was right in front of me the whole time; everything was pointing to him and _I didn't see it._ "

"You have to let this go. She's alright. And _that's_ because of you. And you'll be alright too. You'll heal, and you'll go on protecting her like you've always done."

Booth was quiet then, mulling his words. He knew that his grandfather was right. Guilt wouldn't do him or anyone else any good. He needed to let it go.

Brennan returned to the living room and settled next to Booth on the couch.

"They shouldn't be too much longer," she told him. "It should be done before Parker gets here."

"Thank you," he said once again. "He's really going to be excited to share a room with Pops."

The three of them shared a smile, and the conversation moved on to other things. They discussed plans for lunch as well as dinner, and they traded ideas on the best ways to keep Parker entertained at home. He had a few board games and movies, toys and art supplies. They would manage.

The delivery men emerged from the bedroom then, and Brennan quickly signed the paperwork and tipped them each generously. Once they were gone she returned to Parker's room to put his sheets on the lower mattress and roll it beneath the original frame. It worked very well, and it glided easily enough that Parker should be able to do it himself.

Booth shuffled into the room just as she stood up, and she was a little started to find him there, so close behind her.

"I feel like I don't tell you often enough," he began, kissing her softly, "just how amazing you are."

Brennan smiled up at him indulgently.

"You're pretty incredible yourself." Their lips met again, less restrained than they'd been with each other since the shower that morning, and time quickly got away from them. A few minutes passed, and his right hand was moving purposefully toward the clasp of her bra when a male voice brought them back to earth.

"You know, I don't think either of you are in much shape for that at the moment," Hank said blithely from the doorway.

They sprung apart, slightly embarrassed. Well, Brennan was slightly embarrassed. Booth's face glowed like a stoplight. Brennan watched him sputter for a moment before coming to his rescue.

"We'll get out of your way," she told him, ushering Booth out the door. "Sorry, Hank."

"Don't be," he told her, smiling when she turned back. "He's happier than I've ever seen him. You did that."

Brennan colored prettily but didn't argue, allowing Booth to pull her back to the living room.

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A third knock sounded about a half hour later, and Booth answered this time.

"Daddy!" His son collided roughly with his legs, and Parker's little arms immediately lifted in the universal "pick me up" gesture. Booth sighed, once again cursing that damn bomb. He glanced at Rebecca briefly.

"Hey buddy, I missed you so much!" Booth told him, taking hold of one of his small hands instead. "I can't pick you up today, kiddo, I'm sorry. You can sit on my lap though if you sit _really still_." He issued the challenge playfully, pretending to be skeptical that his son could sit still enough.

"I will, Daddy! What happened?" Parker looked concerned, just now noticing the extent of his father's injuries. Booth ushered both inside.

"Don't worry, Daddy'll be just fine. One of the bad guys I caught this week really didn't want to go to jail. But I'm already feeling a little better." Parker seemed to accept his explanation and gave his legs another tight squeeze.

"Seeley, you didn't tell me you were hurt. Are you sure you can manage him all weekend?" Rebecca asked skeptically.

"Yeah, we'll be fine. And besides, I've got h-"

"Dr. Bones!" Parker shouted happily, having spotted her in the living room. Brennan had observed them quietly, not entirely sure what Rebecca would make of her presence. But the curly-headed little boy bounded for her the moment he saw her and practically leapt into her outstretched arms. She laughed warmly as she hugged him gently before settling him in her arms. His own arms wrapped tightly around her neck, and his feet locked behind her back. It was clear to anyone observing the scene that Booth's son loved her. It was also quite obvious that the feeling was mutual.

Booth grinned widely as he watched them. It had been nearly a month since he'd seen his son, thanks to Rebecca's cancellation two weeks ago, which meant that it had been a month since his son had seen Brennan as well. But it didn't seem to make the slightest bit of difference. He was just as taken with her as he'd been the last time.

Rebecca watched the scene with a rather different perspective. She'd heard plenty about 'Dr. Bones' from her son, including the fact that she was Booth's new girlfriend in spite of his previous insistence that they were only work colleagues. When she'd called to ask him about it, he'd merely said that things had changed. _That much was obvious_ , she thought wryly. She scrutinized the woman now holding her son and didn't much like what he saw. Rebecca thought herself to be a reasonably attractive woman, and she'd certainly never had trouble getting a man to notice her. But this new woman in Booth's life wasn't merely attractive. She was stunning. Rebecca felt suddenly envious not only of her appeal but also of what she had. She had Seeley Booth.

It wasn't that Rebecca still wanted him, because that wasn't the case. Sure, she'd made a few attempts to get him back into her bed from time to time, but she really wasn't interested in renewing a relationship with him. They hadn't been right for each other. But now, watching their son be so openly affectionate with Booth's girlfriend was almost painful. It was difficult to watch her child show another woman the kind of love that he typically only showed her. And what if Booth's relationship with her didn't last? Her son would be heartbroken…

"Rebecca," Booth said, pulling her attention back. "This is my partner, Dr. Temperance Brennan. Bones, this is Rebecca Stinson, Parker's mom."

Brennan attempted to put Parker down so that she could shake Rebecca's hand, but the little boy only clung tighter. Instead, Brennan shifted him slightly to her left side and supported him with one hand while she extended the other toward his mother. Rebecca gritted her teeth a bit shook her hand coolly before turning back to address Booth.

"Seeley, you really should have told me you were injured. Parker probably shouldn't stay overnight; I'm sure you're on medication-"

"Nonsense," a cheerful voice spoke from the hallway. Hank had excused himself to use the restroom shortly before they'd arrived, but he'd stood out of sight to observe the scene for the last few minutes. "Seeley's got all the help he needs, Rebecca. Don't worry about a thing." His genial smile didn't quite reach his eyes, but Booth was fairly certain that Rebecca wouldn't be able to tell.

"Well…" she flustered a bit, irritated with the situation. It would have been rude to argue that Hank wasn't up to the task of helping out, and there really wasn't much else she could say. "That's fine then, I guess. Seeley, can I talk to you for a moment?" Rebecca asked, gesturing toward the door to implicate that they speak in private. Booth sighed but nodded.

After the door closed behind them, Hank offered Brennan a reassuring smile, and she mouthed a 'thank you.' Brennan had been nervous when Rebecca suggested that Parker only stay for the day rather than the rest of the weekend. She knew that would have hurt Booth terribly, and she was thankful that Hank had stepped in when he did.

"Go say hi to Pops," she whispered in Parker's ear. He wiggled down to floor and ran toward Hank.

"Hi Pops!" Parker gave him a hug. "Are you staying with Daddy and Dr. Bones too?"

"I sure am, Squirt. And guess what else. Dr. Bones got a special bed for your room so I can camp out with _you_. Want to go see it?" Parker's eyes lit up and he nodded excitedly. He led the way into his bedroom, and the two adults followed him. But then he turned around, looking confused.

"That's the same bed I had before, Pops."

Hank chuckled, and Brennan moved around him to pull out the trundle.

"Pops will sleep up here tonight, and _you_ get the special secret bed," Brennan told him.

"Wow!" Parker flopped down onto the mattress excitedly. "This is awesome! Thank you, Dr. Bones!"

"You're welcome," she smiled.

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Booth closed the door behind him and met Rebecca's gaze. He had a feeling she'd have something to say about the arrangements this weekend, so he braced himself for whatever might come out of her mouth next.

"What is it, Rebecca?" His tone was surly, and it didn't go unnoticed.

"There's no need for attitude, Seeley. I just wanted to ask what happened, and I didn't think it was something Parker needed to hear. You're a mess," she said, indicating the sling and the few lacerations that were visible.

"I've been worse. Couple of cracked ribs and a fractured collarbone," he shrugged.

"How did it happen?" Rebecca's expression seemed concerned, but as always, there was an intelligent gleam behind her eyes that meant her mind was processing more than simply the answers to her questions.

"Got too close to a bomb," he said simply. "I'll heal quickly enough."

"A _bomb_? Jesus, Seeley…"

"Look, Rebecca, is that really all you wanted? Parker's finally here, and I'd like to spend time with him after not being able to see him for a _month_." Rebecca's expression changed to annoyance then.

"I'm sorry Seeley, but I can't always plan my life around your schedule." Booth shook his head mutely, refusing to get into this argument with her right now. "And since when are you and Dr. Brennan more than work partners? Or was that a lie?"

"It wasn't a lie," Booth answered through tight lips. "When you asked me that, we _were_ just partners. We got together between Christmas and New Year's."

"And you think it's a good idea to let her spend time with our son? Parker's already very attached to her. How's he going to feel when you guys break up, and she's suddenly no longer around?"

"Are you really going to stand there and tell me that he hasn't spent time around the last three boyfriends you had?" Booth was livid. _How dare she?_ "You gonna tell me that you never introduced him to anyone you've dated?" Rebecca looked uncomfortable, and he knew he'd hit the mark.

"I'm just concerned about his feelings, Seeley."

"No you're not. You're jealous that likes her so much," he replied quickly. She hated that he saw through her so easily. "But if you actually _were_ more concerned about his feelings than your own, let me put those concerns to rest. Bones and I are committed. She's not going anywhere. She cares about Parker, and he cares about her. She's a good person, Rebecca. There's absolutely no reason you shouldn't want him around her. I've never introduced Parker to anyone I've dated, and maybe you got comfortable with that arrangement. But your feelings aren't what matters here. Parker will be a better person for knowing her, and I won't take that away."

Rebecca stood in stunned silence, unable to form a coherent response.

"Now, if we're done here, I'd really like to get back to my son." Booth didn't wait for an answer but instead turned to go back inside, closing the door in her face.

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He could hear voices coming from Parker's room, and he assumed they were showing him the new bed. Parker sounded happy. Booth leaned his back against the door and took a minutes to collect himself. He'd seen the envy in Rebecca's eyes as she watched Brennan with their son, and it made him uncomfortable.

Rebecca had a habit of coming on to him when she felt the need for his attention, and when she'd asked him to step outside, he was worried she might try something like that again. She'd made several passes at him over the years, but Booth had fallen for it only once, when Parker was about a year old. He'd foolishly thought that perhaps she wanted to reconcile, and although he hadn't been sold on the idea, he'd been desperate to see more of his son. It wasn't until later that Booth realized she'd never wanted him for anything that wasn't temporary, and since then, he'd given her the brushoff every time. Rebecca wasn't a fan of being told 'no,' and she didn't seem to be able to take the hint.

Brennan, Hank, and Parker came out of the bedroom, and Booth shook off his remaining tension to spend time with his son. He motioned for Parker to sit on his lap once they'd all moved into the living room.

"Remember you have to sit really _really_ still okay?"

"Why?"

"Because Daddy has to be really careful until he's all healed up. Next time you're here, we won't have to be so gentle though."

Brennan bit her tongue. He certainly couldn't go back to wrestling around on the floor with him in just two weeks from now. But she supposed Booth would at least be able to pick him up.

"Does it hurt?" Parker asked with wide eyes.

"Not too much as long as I move slowly," he assured him. Parker laid his head very gently against Booth and placed a kiss on his shoulder. Brennan felt an odd sensation in her chest as she watched the two of them. She loved to see Booth so happy, and Parker was a kind, caring little boy.

"Pops, did you know Dr. Bones is Daddy's _girlfriend_?" Parker said the word _girlfriend_ as though he was sharing an extremely important piece of top secret information.

"I sure did, Squirt," Hank chuckled back. "Do _you_ have a girlfriend?"

"Ewww! No way, girls are gross, Pops!" Everyone laughed and Booth ruffled his son's curly hair. "Can you make grilled cheese for lunch?"

"You bet I can, kiddo. You wanna help me? It's just about lunch time anyway."

"Yeah!" Parker climbed down from Booth's lap quickly, but still carefully enough that he didn't cause any additional pain, and the two of them disappeared into the kitchen. Brennan moved to sit next to him on the couch, and they smiled at each other.

"What did Rebecca want?"

"Just more details on what happened to me mostly. Not that she got very many." Brennan nodded. She supposed that wasn't exactly a story that Parker should hear.

"Time for another pill?" Brennan asked perceptively. Not many would have been tell that Booth was hurting; he hid it very well. But she knew him.

"Yeah, I think so. I don't want to be out of it while Parker's here though," he complained.

"Booth, you need to make sure your pain stays under control. Hank and I will make sure Parker is entertained. Plus, your tolerance is getting better. You might not fall asleep anyway."

"Okay. But just one thing first…" he pulled her onto his lap and was surprised when she allowed it. She didn't lean against him though and sat very still. She grinned and brushed her lips against his softly.

"Mmmm, thank you," he whispered with a smile. "For everything."

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After lunch, Parker talked them into a board game, which was followed by a puzzle, which was followed by a nap. He was once again curled up against Brennan, but this time she was reclined against the opposite end of the couch with her feet in Booth's lap. Booth knew that he wouldn't last long either, so he found a documentary for her and closed his eyes. Every so often, he would unconsciously rub his fingers over the skin of her foot, and though Brennan tried to pay attention to the show, she found her mind wandering.

She thought back to the things she'd realized while tethered to a hook in a room full of growling dogs. To those minutes that had seemed like hours, from the time she regained consciousness until the moment Booth had shot her captor. Not since her time in El Salvador had she felt so certain that she would die at any second. Brennan supposed she should have known that Booth would come for her, one way or another. He'd promised to keep her safe, and so he had.

As Parker stirred slightly against her, she looked down at his peaceful features. Could she be a good parent to him? Parker seemed to think so, and Booth certainly did. She had never truly considered the possibility of being a mother until she'd gotten closer to Booth and met his son. Now she was left wondering what else that particular life might hold for her. She had known that Booth and his son were a packaged deal, and she'd accepted that, if they stayed together for the long term, she could potentially play a significant role in Parker's life.

Not only had she accepted it, but she now realized that she'd come to truly _want_ it. And she couldn't help but try to picture what it might be like to have a child of her own with Booth. A little girl with his spirit and character. A little boy with his humor and charm. The picture was a pleasing one, and she smiled into the empty space between her and Booth.

She wasn't ready now, by any means. But she felt certain it would happen… eventually.

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Brennan cooked for them that evening, and Hank insisted on helping her with the cleanup while Booth and Parker set up a movie in the living room.

"That kid loves you, you know," Hank told her with certainty. "I've never seen him take to anyone the way he does with you." Brennan couldn't hide her surprise at his words. As unpracticed as she was with small children, Brennan had just assumed that Parker was an incredibly open and affectionate child.

"Really? Perhaps because Booth doesn't usually bring women around him?"

"I don't think so," Hank said with a negative shake of his head. "I've never even seen him attach himself to Rebecca like he was clinging to you this morning. It was no wonder she looked like someone had pissed in her cheerios." Brennan looked alarmed at the metaphor and took a moment to process.

"I assume you mean that she was personally offended by Parker's behavior."

"Exactly. Now I don't get to see the boy as much as I'd like these days, but I know him well enough to know you've got a special place in his heart." Hank's honest blue eyes pierced her own, and she nodded.

"The feeling is mutual," she told him with a shy expression. Hank chuckled.

"Oh yeah. I know that too."

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The movie wasn't quite to the halfway point when Brennan fell asleep. Hank was in the recliner, looking a little bleary-eyed himself, and Parker was stretched out on a blanket in front of the television. Booth was sitting on a far end of the couch again, and Brennan had dozed off with her head in his lap. His right arm was draped over her torso and curled gently around her waist.

So he noticed immediately when she began to twitch and jerk around in her sleep. At first he thought she might have startled herself awake, but her eyes remained closed. Her brow was furrowed slightly, and she whimpered loud enough to catch Hank's attention as well. Booth's hand moved to stroke her face gently, trying to soothe her back into a restful sleep. But instead she began to writhe against him, eyes fluttering beneath her lids, breathing faster and faster.

"Bones," he said quietly, giving her a gentle shake. He didn't want to alarm his son, but Brennan was clearly having a bad dream. " _Bones,"_ he said a little louder. "Wake up, come on now." She settled down gradually at the sound of his voice so he kept talking, and when her eyes finally eased open, her breathing was almost normal.

"Booth?"

"Yeah, I'm here. You were having a dream?"

She nodded, hoping she hadn't been screaming as she had within the dream. In front of Hank and Parker, no less. She glanced over at Parker, who seemed to have noticed nothing, and then at Hank, who was gazing at her in concern.

"You alright there, Sweetheart?" Hank asked quietly.

"Yes, I'm fine. Sorry to alarm you," she answered self-consciously.

"Don't be silly. Nothing to be sorry for," he replied kindly. Hank turned back to the TV in order to give the couple a little privacy.

Booth tilted his head at her inquisitively. She was wincing a little as she repositioned herself to face the back of the couch

"Bones, when's the last time you took something for your head?" She shrugged, eyes still closed. " _Bones,"_ he chastised. He remembered what she'd said the first time he'd woken her from a nightmare.

" _I've noticed that when I fall asleep with a headache, I nearly always wake from bad dreams."_

That night she'd shared just one story that gave her nightmares. Now he knew many more, and he didn't have to think too hard to come up with the scenario that was plaguing her now. _Damn Kenton to hell_ , he thought savagely.

"Come on, Bones. Let's get up and take our meds, give them a little time to start working before we try to sleep, okay?"

Brennan knew it was pointless to argue, and she tilted her head up to look at him directly with a mock scowl on her face.

"You're bossy," she accused. Booth grinned and pinched her cheek lightly.

"I learn from the best," he quoted her. She chuckled as she rose from the couch and turned to help him up. Parker was still completely absorbed in the film, but Hank was watching them approvingly.

"You need anything while we're up, Pops?" Booth asked, stifling a yawn.

"No thanks, Shrimp." Booth turned toward the kitchen, but Brennan lingered, looking troubled.

"Hank, don't you take medication for your heart?"

"Uh, yeah. Twice a day. Don't worry, I'll take 'em before I turn in."

Brennan nodded but caught Booth's eye as they entered the kitchen. He gave her a reassuring nod and a smile.

"I'll make sure he takes them," he whispered. He reached for Brennan's medication then, handing her the bottle with a stern expression. "You haven't taken anything since this morning, have you?"

"I really don't like taking medicine," she explained sullenly. Booth rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, Bones, I know. But there's no reason for you to be in pain, right?"

Her brilliant comeback was little more than a shrug, and she swallowed her pill before handing him the bottle of water she'd used. He knocked back another vicodin and put the bottle of water in the fridge. Brennan couldn't help but notice that he flinched a tiny bit when he opened the door.

"Are you having nightmares too?" Brennan asked him quietly.

"No, the vicodin pretty much knocks me out for the night." He looked at her curiously. "Have you? Other than the one on the couch I mean."

"I think I was too exhausted to dream on Thursday evening. But last night…" She trailed off, and his brows pulled together.

"Why didn't you wake me?"

Brennan threw him a look that said she thought that idea was ridiculous.

"Booth, you're recovering from being _blown up_. You need your sleep more than I needed you to dry my tears."

"You were crying?"

"Let it go, Booth. Bad dreams happen. With the kind of month we've had, it's little wonder." She stroked his cheek and smiled at him reassuringly.

"I guess you're right. Still, no matter what I'm recovering from… if you have a nightmare, I want to know about it. Let me be there for you, okay?"

She gave a sigh of resignation and nodded, leaning upward slightly to kiss him. When they returned to the living room, the credits were rolling, and Parker and Hank had both dozed off.

"Why don't you wake him and make sure he takes his pills. I'll carry Parker to bed," she suggested. Booth agreed and watched affectionately as she leaned over to scoop his little boy into her arms. Parker's hand clutched her shirt tightly, and she turned to walk toward his bedroom. Booth woke Hank gently and cajoled him into taking his pills before bed.

Brennan laid Parker gently on the trundle bed, again feeling satisfied with the purchase. This would have been a rather difficult maneuver with a bunk bed. She pulled his covers over him, and the boy's eyes fluttered sleepily at her.

"G'night, Dr. Bones," he mumbled. "Love you."

Brennan stilled in the act of tucking his blankets around him, and she felt tears gathering in her eyes. She leaned down to kiss his forehead gently and whispered back to him.

"I love you too. Goodnight."

She stood and turned to leave the room, finding both Booth men staring at her happily, having overheard Parker's words. Hank wore a gloating expression, clearly pleased he'd been right. Booth was gazing at her with so much love in his eyes that it nearly left her breathless. Brennan smiled shyly at him and went to wait for him in the bedroom. Booth said goodnight to his son and made sure his grandfather had everything he needed before joining her.

The lights were still on, but his Bones was already in bed, nearly asleep. He smiled affectionately at her and flipped the lightswitch. Booth pulled his clothing off carefully and left the sling on the nightstand. She'd probably give him hell for it tomorrow, but he needed to have his arms around her. Then at least if she woke up, he'd know. And hopefully she wouldn't accidentally sock him in the ribs while she was at it.

She murmured sleepily as he drew her closer, and he could just barely make out her words.

"I love you too, baby."

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Parker was picked up shortly before dinner the next day, and Hank decided to leave not long afterward. He had stayed long enough to discourage Rebecca from causing a scene, though no one had missed the irritation on her face when Parker had been reluctant to leave.

"You keep my grandson in line, alright?" Hank told Brennan affectionately as he pulled her in for a goodbye hug. The couple were helping him into a cab for his trip back home.

"I'll do my best," she promised. After Hank released her, he pulled Booth aside slightly.

"Don't let the guilt eat you up. There are too many more important things to think about. You have a beautiful woman who loves you and a son who adores you. Focus on what's important."

"I know, Pops. Thanks."

Hank hugged his grandson and waved to Brennan again before pulling the door shut. Booth and Brennan watched the cab disappear around the next corner before heading back inside.

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"Are you sure you'll be alright on your own? I'd stay, but there are a few things going on today that I really can't leave for Zack to do unsupervised." For once, she found she would rather stay home than go to work. It wasn't something she felt very often.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Mostly just sit around and watch tv. Maybe re-read my favorite book," he hinted playfully.

"What would that be?"

"Yours," he answered simply. Brennan's eyebrows lifted in surprise.

" _Re_ -read? How many times have you read my book?"

"A few."

She was touched that he thought highly enough of her writing to read it more than once. It wasn't as though it was the first time anyone told her that, but hearing it from strangers was different than hearing it from the person whose opinion she valued above all others. She was momentarily speechless, and her emotion must've shown on her face.

"Which is why you should really let me have a look at that manuscript you've got password-protected," he told her very convincingly. She nearly considered it.

"Not yet," she grinned. Playing this game was the fun part. Predictably, he put on an expression of false devastation.

"Before it comes out?" Booth asked hopefully.

"Maybe. If you behave." She wrapped her arms gently around his waist, mindful of his ribs. Booth leaned down to kiss her softly before whispering in her ear.

"Can I read it sooner if I _don't_ behave?"

Brennan laughed in response and shivered as his lips brushed against her neck.

"Possibly," she conceded, but she continued, "But only if you wait until you're healed."

Booth groaned in frustration as she waved goodbye and closed the door. _Impossible._

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Booth did spend some time in front of the television, but the forced time off from work seemed to be a perfect opportunity to start work on investigating Matt and Christine Brennan's disappearance. There would be more he could do from the office when he returned for desk duty on Wednesday, but he could sign in remotely from his laptop to run a few searches. The file was extremely limited on information, and from what Booth could tell, not much had been done to search for Brennan's parents.

With no obvious signs of foul play and no physical evidence linking the couple to anything illegal, it seemed to have been given a zero priority by the Chicago P.D. as well as the Illinois State Police. Their car had been located in New Jersey, but the last record of its existence was at an impound lot in New Jersey shortly after they'd disappeared.

The vehicle seemed to be the most likely place to begin searching for evidence, but of course there was the inevitable jurisdiction problem. He couldn't get the car out of the impound lot without opening a case, and although there was more than one state involved in this mess, there was still no evidence that a crime had been committed. Since he couldn't open a case, any digging he did had to be off the books-which meant he had to do it alone.

Booth decided that perhaps the next best place to start would be Brennan's brother. He felt a bit nervous in his decision to contact the man, but surely Brennan had understood that if he was going to do the thing right, he would _have_ to talk to Russ. So far as they were aware, Russ was the only other living person who had known Brennan's parents on a personal level. Booth would delve into their coworkers and friends eventually, but the most likely source of information had to come first.

It only took a couple of database searches to find Russ Brennan. He was a parolee in Morehead City, North Carolina. _Fantastic_ , Booth thought grimly. He read through Russ's criminal history and supposed that it could have been worse. He'd been caught running a scrapping business which had dismantled stolen cars to sell off the parts. Booth was relieved that Russ's offense wasn't a violent one, and he placed a quick call to the guy's parole officer, Erica Davis.

Ms. Davis explained that Russ had served his time and seemed to be a decent guy trying to get his life together for his family. Booth asked if he was married, but the woman clarified to say that he was dating or engaged to a woman who had two daughters from a previous relationship. Ms. Davis seemed to like Russ overall and didn't have any complaints about his behavior. She provided an address and phone number before Booth ended the call.

While he was mollified to hear good things from Ms. Davis, Booth still had to take a moment to compose himself before making his next call. This man had abandoned his little sister to the mercy of a system that he couldn't have possibly understood. Surely if he'd known anything about the lives of foster children, he would have tried harder to help Brennan cope. Nevertheless, Booth still felt angry with him. There had to have been another way, another option he could have taken. Anything that didn't result in his Bones being beaten and molested by people who should have been taking care of her.

Booth sighed deeply and dialed the number. It rang twice before a male voice answered.

"Hello, I'm looking for Russ Brennan?"

"Yeah, who's this?"

"My name is Special Agent Seeley Booth with the FBI in DC. Your sister is my partner." Booth held his breath and waited for a response.

"Is she okay? Did something happen?" Russ's voice was clearly panicked, and Booth felt a mixture of satisfaction that the man was obviously concerned for his sister's well-being and foolishness for not realizing what his words must have implied.

"She's fine, Russ. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to alarm you. This isn't that kind of call," Booth explained quickly. He heard Russ give a sigh of relief on the other end.

"Oh. So Tempe works for the FBI now?"

"No, she works for the Jeffersonian Institute as a forensic anthropologist. But she contracts out to the FBI, and I'm the liaison between the two."

"I see," Russ replied. His tone held a note of sarcasm that Booth guessed must be related to the fact that he was a felon while his sister fought crime. "Well, what can I do for you, Agent…"

"Booth. Your sister asked me to look into your parents' disappearance, and I'd like to ask you a few questions if that's alright with you."

Russ made an odd sort of noise between a grunt and a laugh, and Booth could visualize a skeptical expression on the man's face.

"You can ask, but I don't know what I can possibly tell you about it that Tempe can't," Russ said a little sharply.

"I'll take my chances. You were nineteen when they disappeared, correct?"

"Yeah."

"Do you remember the names of any of your parents' friends or coworkers? Neighbors maybe?"

Russ sighed and was silent for a moment. "I remember where they worked, but no specific coworkers come to mind. I don't really recall any friends by name. The neighbors I knew were mainly kids my own age. I might remember a few of their names, but not their parents."

Booth jotted down the two names that Russ rattled off and verified the address of their home at the time of his parents' disappearance.

"Thanks. Do you remember hearing or seeing anything odd around the time your parents went missing? Even if it didn't seem strange until after they were gone?"

"No. Everything was normal until… until it wasn't." Russ sounded dejected, and Booth pursed his lips in disappointment.

"Alright, well if I have any more questions for you, I can reach you at this number?"

"Yeah, uh… Look I appreciate you looking into things, but I don't know what Tempe expects you to find. My parents weren't the type to just run off and abandon their kids and their lives," Russ told him irritably.

"What do _you_ think happened then?"

"I think they're dead. I think they died a long time ago." Russ took a calming breath before continuing. "And I think maybe they deserve to rest in peace. I'd like answers too, but after this many years, we're not gonna get any."

"I guess we'll see," Booth answered, appreciating the man's perspective but not his attitude. He had given up, just as he had given up on his sister. He was about to say his goodbyes when Russ changed the subject slightly.

"Agent Booth, my sister… My sister refuses to take my calls, and I just… Can you at least tell me if she's okay? Is she happy?"

Booth contemplated his answer for a moment. Brennan had made it clear that she didn't want to speak to Russ or share any part of her life with him. _Would it betray her confidence to answer Russ's questions?_

"Yeah, she's okay. And I think she's very happy." Booth said the words in a manner which hopefully conveyed that he wouldn't be giving any further details.

"Thank you," Russ said after a few moments.

"You're welcome. I'll be in touch."

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 **Let me know your thoughts! See you Wednesday. :)**


	21. Chapter 21

**Time for more? Thank you all so much for the awesome feedback. Whether you're reviewing, following, favoriting, or liking and retweeting the updates on Twitter, it means so much to me.**

 **We're at our time jump. The New Orleans episode gave me a headache trying to piece it all together chronologically, but hopefully I got it sorted it out comprehensively. Also, this chapter is most definitely rated M for Maybe you should have some ice water handy. ;)**

 **Enjoy and leave me some love!**

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Chapter 21

The next month flew by in a comfortable routine of crime-solving, novel-writing, and love-making. Brennan's second book was nearing completion, and her publishers were very excited about the chapters she had submitted thus far. Booth still hadn't been given permission to read it yet, but he never failed to 'poke and prod' her about it.

Booth continued to make phone calls and search databases about her parents' disappearance, but he had come up with nothing meaningful. Their lives, at least for the three or four years prior to their disappearance, seemed to have been nothing out of the ordinary. After a handful of phone calls to state and local law enforcement, it became clear that no one had worked the case in a very long time. And those who did had retired or moved on. But Booth refused to give up. There had to be something he was missing. He hadn't told Brennan about his conversation with Russ, since it hadn't really gotten him anywhere in the end. Booth figured that he could always bring it up when there was truly something to discuss.

They had solved three more cases, one of which had necessitated a trip to New Mexico. Angela's part time boyfriend-a man whom she spent time with only three weeks out of each year-had been murdered during the course of a desert photo shoot. Their investigation had turned up an unexpected link to a counterfeiting operation, and the participants had killed the man when he'd witnessed part of their operation.

Their next case had involved the remains of a woman found in the intricate network of tunnels beneath the city. Thanks to the help of a former soldier-turned-tunnel dweller, they'd been able to arrest two rock climbing instructors who had killed the woman over the contents of a long-forgotten vault within the tunnels. It hadn't been the easiest case for Booth. Not only because his girlfriend had seemed determined to take risks without stopping to consider the potential dangers, but also because he had identified on a personal level with the former soldier who had eventually lead them to the murder scene.

The most recent case had taken them to the site of an underwater dig where Hodgins, of all people, had unearthed a seventeenth century pirate skeleton. Unfortunately, the bones turned out to have been stolen from the Jeffersonian by their victim in order to 'salt the shaft.' The man who committed the murder had done so out of anger that the victim had dishonored the memory of his brother, who had died working the dig. Though the team had entertained themselves with the pirate aspect of the case, Booth and Brennan were both glad to see it finished. The murderer had nearly succeeded in drowning Hodgins.

Booth had been forced onto desk duty for a couple of weeks following his injury, but just as he'd promised Brennan, he did heal faster than even she expected. He'd been so thrilled when his doctor had cleared him for sexual activity, that Goodman had nearly caught them in her office. Since that close call, they'd been able to restrain themselves at work for the most part.

Over the course of those first few weeks following the Cugini and Hamilton cases, they had both done a fair bit of emotional healing as well. Booth watched her go about her job each day in an extremely composed and rational manner, and it was then that he realized the true extent of what she'd meant by being 'able to compartmentalize.' Some days it was almost like Brennan had shut off her fear completely, and only Booth could see its remnants hiding behind her beautiful blue eyes. The nights were another matter altogether; she couldn't hide it from anyone while she slept. She'd woken from nightmares many times, but she always seemed to calm down quickly enough when she heard his voice.

Booth had his fair share of nightmares too. After all, losing her was one of his biggest fears, and it had very nearly happened. He wasn't nearly as good at compartmentalizing, but he did his best not to drive Brennan crazy by being overly protective. To his surprise, however, she didn't seem to mind it as much as she once did. She didn't lecture him about it, she rarely rolled her eyes, and other than one risky incident of chasing an unknown man into a dark tunnel, she had taken considerably fewer risks than what he'd come to expect.

The repetitive phone calls had stopped when Brennan changed her number-yet another thing to be thankful for. Booth still wasn't entirely sure what to make of it, and while Brennan took it as a sign that he'd been overreacting for no reason, he resolved to keep it in the back of his mind for the time being. His gut told him that the calls weren't as innocuous as Brennan wanted to believe. Particularly since Peter was due to be released from custody in a week's time.

That was the state of things when Brennan dropped her next bit of news on him…

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 _Friday_

"FEMA wants me in New Orleans next week," she began hesitantly. "There are still a lot of unidentified remains from Katrina."

This would be the first time since they were together that she traveled alone for her job. The terms of their agreement regarding anthropological fieldwork had been fresh in her mind as she'd negotiated her terms for providing assistance. She watched Booth's nervous expression from across the dinner table and waited for him to respond.

"For how long?"

"Just a few days. I'd get down there on Sunday evening, fly back on Thursday morning. They wanted longer, but I told them that was the best I could do."

Booth nodded, considering. He knew that the New Orleans law enforcement was still trying to get a handle on the crime rate that had not receded with the floodwaters. The news coverage coming out of the area showed utter devastation, and Booth didn't need to be a Special Agent to know that Brennan's trip would be at least slightly dangerous. An attractive woman alone in a city like that was a target, hurricane or no.

"I know we talked about you coming with me when I go on digs and such, but this really isn't the same kind of thing. I'd mostly be working in one of the makeshift morgues they've set up, and I'd be surrounded by law enforcement the majority of the time. Whether it's local cops or reservists…"

Booth smiled slightly at her reassurance. "It's not like you need to ask my permission, Bones. This is your job. I get it."

"I wasn't asking permission; I already told them I'd help out for a few days. I just don't want you to worry unnecessarily," she explained, returning his smile.

"Well, I'll probably worry at least a little bit," he conceded. "But there are some things you can do to help with that." Brennan had started to roll her eyes, but she stopped herself and raised her brow inquisitively. "Phone calls. At least two a day to let me know you got from your hotel to the morgue and back again safely. If you can't call, then a text is fine. Don't go anywhere alone, especially at night. And I want to have the details on where you're staying and working in case something happens."

Brennan had pursed her lips a little tighter at each request as he counted them off on his fingertips. She was about to reply when he added one more.

"And promise me that you'll eat at least two meals a day. I know how distracted you can get, and you need to take care of yourself."

She closed her eyes briefly and huffed a little laugh. There really was no point in arguing.

"And if I do those things, you won't worry?"

"No I will. But it'll make me feel better."

Brennan shook her head but conceded. "Fine. I can do that. But I want you to promise me something in return."

"What's that?"

"Stay away from Peter's parole hearing," she told him. Her expression had suddenly become more serious, and she could tell that her request had surprised him. "I know full well that his hearing is on Thursday, and he's due to be released that day. I understand why you probably think you should be there, but I was serious about moving on. Let his parole officer worry about keeping track of him; that's his job."

Booth didn't respond for a few moments, trying to see a way around it.

"No, Bones… I need to look him in the eye again. I need him to know that he can't get to you without going through me. I need to watch him, to see if he's calmed down about the whole thing, to know if he's still a threat."

"Booth, you can't read minds. Even if you were there, you'd have no way of knowing for certain whether he's a threat or not. And he just spent the last four months in jail because of what he did to me. Not to mention the way you went after him in the interrogation… you had his feet off the floor, Booth. He's not likely to forget how you feel about things."

"It's not enough," he argued. "In fact, given his anger issues, he's more likely to want to get back at one or both of us."

"And if he tries anything stupid, we're practically always together. He can't take us both." Her eyes were pleading in a way that Booth was never able to ignore. _How the hell does she do that?_ Eventually he nodded his agreement. He had already intended to keep in touch with the parole officer in addition to attending the hearing. That communication would have to be enough.

"Thank you," she said, smiling once more. She got up to clear the table, and he followed to help her. There were only a few dishes from their dinner, so she took his suggestion and left them in the sink for the night.

They had better things to do.

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 _Saturday_

"You're using vacation days for this?" Booth asked her incredulously. The Jeffersonian was a federally-funded institution, at least in part. If one government agency wanted her help, it didn't seem right that she was to be penalized by another for providing it.

"Yes, well… it's complicated. But it's just four days. I have another month's worth left over for the year. Usually I save them to travel at Christmas and in the summer, but… maybe we could take a trip somewhere together?" Brennan asked tentatively.

"Mmm, _great_ idea," he praised, pulling her away from her half-packed suitcase and into his arms. He swayed, dancing their bodies back and forth a little as he nuzzled her neck. "Warm, sunny beach… you in a bikini… nice hotel room with a jacuzzi tub…" He punctuated each suggestion with a kiss to the side of her throat, and she responded to the contact as well as the images he was creating.

"That sounds… very appealing," she replied, twisting her fingers into his hair. She pulled his head back from her and caught his lips in a passionate kiss. Booth's arms tightened around her, and he walked her slowly backward toward the bed. Brennan's hands moved purposefully toward his pants, making quick work of the belt and buttons while he reached beneath her shirt to unclasp her bra. As soon as her hands had finished their task, he lifted both over her head to remove her clothing.

Booth released a sigh of longing as he gazed at the gorgeous expanse of soft skin he'd revealed. He bent his head quickly to capture the hardened tip of her breast with his mouth, easing her backward until they were both laying on the bed. She writhed beneath him, stroking the back of his head with one hand and trying to remove the rest of her clothing with the other. After a few moments of struggling, he paused in his ministrations to assist her, casting off his own shirt in the process.

Brennan luxuriated in the rewarding sensation of his skin against hers. She was more than ready for him, but she felt the need to draw things out a while longer. They'd made love for hours the previous evening, knowing that it would be a long week away from each other when she left tomorrow. She was going to miss him, she'd realized. They hadn't spent a night apart in months, and she wasn't entirely sure that her own ability to sleep hadn't become dependent on his presence.

She encouraged him to flip onto his back, pulling her along with him to straddle his hips. The wet heat of her center pressed deliciously against the throbbing length of him, but she kept him from making the necessary adjustments to enter her properly. Instead, the head of his arousal pressed firmly against her clit, and her hips moved only enough to torment him with the sensation.

" _Bones,"_ he groaned, placing both hands on her hips in an attempt to guide her. But Brennan shook her head at him and smiled seductively.

"Not yet." Their lips met again, and she whimpered with her own need. He allowed her to control their movements for a little while, running his hands up and down her torso from her hips to her full breasts and back again.

Booth panted with the effort to hold back until she was ready, but her teasing pushed him steadily toward his breaking point. He startled her by slipping a hand beneath each of her thighs and lifting her away from his body. But Brennan was even more surprised by his next movements. He simultaneously urged her body forward on the bed while he moved his own in the opposite direction. Before she'd even completely realized his intentions, she was leaning slightly against his chest, and he had moved his arms underneath her legs. The first touch of his tongue to her core sent a shock of pleasure tingling through her body.

"Booth!" She was quickly at the cusp of her first release as he moved his mouth skillfully beneath her. His tongue penetrated her repeatedly in a steady rhythm, but she struggled to delay her own pleasure. She never seemed to stop wanting _more_ of him, and she clutched the top of the headboard to steady herself.

He moved his hands behind her to clasp her buttocks and pull her harder still against his mouth, and when his teeth clamped lightly on her clit, she could hold back no longer. She screamed and trembled against him, his mouth still working diligently until the spasms slowed. Brennan watched his smoldering gaze meet hers once more and was sure she felt him smile against her flesh.

However, before she could compose herself enough to say a word, he'd flipped her onto her back again. Booth settled his hips between her thighs and thrust home in one quick movement. She shuddered with pleasure again, and opened her eyes to look into his as he set a pounding rhythm.

She moved her hands in sensual patterns over the smooth musculature of his back, enjoying the weight of him on top of her, and their eye contact never broke, even when she shattered for a second time only moments later. Booth watched her eyes change color as she came, and the beauty of it sent him tumbling over the edge shortly thereafter.

Booth collapsed on top of her, breathing heavily into her silky hair for several moments while he collected himself.

" _God_ , Bones. That was amazing."

Brennan hugged her to him and relished in the feel of him, covering her torso completely and still pulsating within her. Her own spasms had only just begun to dissipate, and she struggled for coherency.

"Yes. It still seems to get better each time. I'm not even sure how that's possible."

Booth smiled happily and eased slowly out and off of her. He gathered her to his chest and stroked her velvety skin, utterly content.

"That's because it's us, baby," he told her, kissing her softly. Anyone else might have thought he was being arrogant, but she knew what he meant. He'd never experienced sex this intensely, and neither had she. It was only this incredible because of the connection they felt with one another. Shortly after they'd begun their intimate relationship, she had asked him if it would always be like this. _Intense. Fulfilling. Wonderful_. He had told her it would, and though she'd believed him, the acute passion of their lovemaking still had the ability to stun her.

They laid together for a while longer: talking, kissing, touching. Delaying the inevitable. Brennan had to finish packing so that she would be ready for her flight the next morning. She'd never felt a reluctance to travel for work, usually feeling rather excited at the prospect of learning something new or helping those in need. And while she did feel called to offer the benefit of her unique skill set in New Orleans, she couldn't help but feel a little wistful that she would lose precious time with Booth.

It would be a long four days indeed.

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 _Sunday_

Brennan arrived in New Orleans in the late afternoon and took a cab to the bed and breakfast where FEMA had found a room for her. She lingered only long enough to freshen up and make sure her bag contained everything she would need before heading out again. She had called Booth once her plane had landed, and he'd asked her to let him know when she was in for the night. Brennan felt oddly energized, however, and she had a feeling that her night would be very late indeed. She wanted to get as much accomplished as humanly possible during her short stay.

She gave the cab driver the address of the church-turned-morgue where she would be working, and settled against the back seat to gaze out the window. She'd seen the devastation between the airport and her room, but it seemed to strike her anew. It wasn't the worst disaster aftermath she'd ever witnessed, but it was close. Entire neighborhoods were swept away or were left in states of collapse and decay. The structures which still stood were boarded up, some graffitied with spray paint indicating that the dwelling was empty or that there had been remains inside which must be removed. Thousands were missing and might never be found, and Brennan felt the familiar pull to give names to as many of the dead as she could manage.

Upon her arrival at the morgue, she was introduced to a handful of people who would be working alongside her that week. The medical examiner, Dr. Graham Legiere, an assistant medical examiner named Dr. James Embry, and two orderlies by the names of Mike Doyle and Sam Potter. She would later be introduced to a Detective Rose Harding as well, who was handling the investigations for those remains which appeared to have been the victim of foul play.

Brennan got quickly to work, focusing on her tasks diligently as the meaningless conversations of her colleagues took place around her. She generally preferred to work alone in situations like this, but it couldn't be helped. The city needed as many qualified hands as possible. The first evening, she stayed late into the night, texting Booth around eleven that she would be staying late to work but that she had at least eaten dinner. She ate her FEMA-supplied food ration as she read Booth's response. He implored her not to stay up all night working. _He knew her so well,_ she thought wryly. She smiled down at her phone and made no promises in her reply, telling him that she loved him and would talk to him in the morning.

"In love, huh?" Mike Doyle asked as he plopped down next to her with his own dinner. Her brow furrowed in confusion. "Not much else puts a look like that on a woman's face," he explained. Brennan smiled and nodded.

"Yes," she replied simply. _She was most certainly in love._

"He back home? Or, uh… she?" Mike asked awkwardly.

" _He_ is back in DC, yes."

The orderly nodded and looked as though he might say something else, but Brennan had finished her food and took the opportunity to excuse herself. Chatting with a person she would most likely never see again didn't feel like a productive use of her time.

Brennan worked into the wee hours before finally finding space on a church pew to rest for a short while. She closed her eyes for perhaps an hour but was awoken by someone addressing her. Dr. Legiere had touched her shoulder gently to rouse her.

"There's no need for you to sleep here, Dr. Brennan. Go back to your room and get some rest; start again tomorrow."

Brennan quashed the urge to correct him that it was already 'tomorrow' and noticed that the sun was beginning to lighten the sky on the other side of the tall sanctuary windows.

"I'm fine. I won't be in town for long, and I prefer to complete as many identifications as possible."

She rose from her seat and stretched, rolling the stiffness her spine and neck. Dr. Legiere watched her intently, and when she took off in the direction of the room she'd been using the day before, he followed her. She would've said she could feel his eyes on her ass, but of course that was impossible.

Graham Legiere was a decent-looking man. _Not nearly as good looking as Booth,_ she noted. But he had a sort of charm about him and seemed to be in good spirits despite the grim nature of their work. Each time Brennan looked up from her task to make a notation or sign off on an ID, the man seemed to be looking at her. She didn't feel quite as uncomfortable as she had with Jesse Kane, but Dr. Legiere's penetrating gaze was still a bit unsettling.

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 _Monday_

It was still a little early to call Booth, but she felt an inexplicable need to hear his voice. She excused herself and went in search of some privacy and smiled widely when he answered on the first ring.

"Hey, baby!" Booth greeted her playfully.

"Are you really going to keep calling me that?" She had let it slide a few times in the past week or so. Perhaps more often than she'd thought, she realized. Booth laughed in amusement at her less-than-weighty disapproval.

"You like it. Just a little bit."

"Do not."

"Do too."

Brennan sighed, smiling to hear his voice and enjoying their light bickering. It was who they were. He paused as well, and she could imagine that his grin mirrored her own.

"So how late did you stay last night?" Booth asked, his tone indicating that he already knew the answer.

"Well…"

"All night, right?"

"I did take a nap," she insisted half-heartedly.

"Have you at least eaten again since you texted last night?"

Brennan was silent, and Booth took it as confirmation of his suspicions.

" _Bones,_ you promised. You have to eat. And you have to sleep too. More than just the couple of hours I'm betting you got sitting against a wall or something. _Don't make me come down there_." He said the last sentence jokingly in the tone of a parent who meant business. She snorted.

"I know, Booth. I'm sorry. I'm actually heading to get some breakfast right now, which is why it seemed like a good time to call." Brennan moved toward the common area to make good on her statement.

"Okay," he replied, sounding mollified.

They spoke for a little while longer, discussing their plans for the following weekend and what Booth had on his agenda for that day. Before long, she'd finished her food and was ready to get back to work. She didn't want to end the call, shuffling slowly back to her workspace.

"I miss you," she admitted.

"I miss you too. You know, I could still come down there… make sure you're making time to eat, sleep...do other things," he teased her. His tone was only half joking.

"Thanks, but I'm sure I can manage. The eating and the sleeping, that is. The ' _other things'_ will have to wait." Booth could hear the smile in her voice and sighed, wishing it was Thursday instead of Monday.

"Alright, Bones. I'll let you go. Talk to you later?"

"Yeah, I'll call when I get to a stopping point this evening. I love you."

"I love you too."

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Sixteen hours later, Brennan was still working. It was nearly midnight in New Orleans, and her phone buzzed loudly from her pocket. She glanced at the clock and cursed under her breath. She didn't have to be a genius to know who was calling.

"Brennan."

"Tell me you fell asleep in that nice room at the B&B you were telling me about. That's why you didn't call, right?" She cringed a little, noting the fatigue in his voice, and she hoped he hadn't been waiting up.

"Um… not quite. But I'm headed that way pretty soon."

"Uh huh. And food?"

"I ate," she said vaguely. _At lunch_. Her co-workers had insisted on taking her to a local jambalaya place which had reminded her pleasantly of the diner. "Stop worrying. I'm just fine, and I'll call you in the morning on my way back here, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," he answered gruffly. He could only do so much from so far away.

"I'll finish this last ID and go. I'm nearly done. How was your day?"

"S'okay. Just wish you were back. Cullen was in a shitty mood all day. Something's going on with his kid."

"I didn't know he had a child," Brennan remarked with interest, documenting the last few details on the clipboard in her hand. "How old?"

"Yeah, a daughter. She's about fifteen I think. I don't know what's going on, but he's not acting like himself."

"Hmm. Well adolescents can be rebellious. Perhaps it's something like that. You sound exhausted, Booth. Go to bed, okay?"

"Yeah," he answered, failing to stifle a yawn. " _Please_ go back to your room and get some rest tonight," he urged her.

"I'll do my best," she offered.

" _Bones."_

"I was kidding. I'll go, I promise."

"Thank you," he said genuinely. Brennan chuckled a little.

"Thank _you_."

"For what?"

"For caring. It's nice. Even if it _does_ drive me a little crazy," she joked. Booth gave a tired laugh.

"Fair enough. Talk to you tomorrow?"

"Yes. Sleep well."

They exchanged their I Love Yous and hung up. Brennan did return to her room for a few hours of sleep, but she felt too restless to stay in bed longer than that. She'd been correct about trying to sleep alone. She couldn't seem to turn her mind off or get comfortable enough for restful sleep. Brennan knew the reason, and she had a sense of ambivalence toward the matter. Her independent nature rebelled against the very idea of being so attached to anyone that their absence could affect her so greatly. But at the same time, she could never imagine feeling anything but grateful that Booth was in her life, that he returned her love in equal measure. If having him meant giving up a little of her independence, then she supposed she could live with that.

He was worth it.

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 _Tuesday_

Brennan had started early that morning, having one identification complete before her colleagues had even arrived. It was a tedious process. With her FBI cases, she enjoyed a sense of accomplishment each time they solved a murder. With her Bone Storage cases, each one felt like a tinier step in the right direction, especially since there were always so many more still waiting to be identified. She enjoyed working them primarily because she often did the work in quiet solitude. Brennan found it relaxing.

This setup, however, was certainly not relaxing, and it felt like an endless task. There were always more bodies coming in, two or three to every one she completed. It was disheartening, even if it wasn't anything she hadn't dealt with before.

That afternoon, Brennan did her best to focus on her work while her co-workers chatted around her. Working with a group comprised solely of males had made her privy to many conversations she could have done without hearing. Not the worst of which was Mike Doyle's boasting about his sexual exploits with a woman who was apparently turned on by dead bodies. He shared his story with Legiere as he rolled another body into the room.

What made the situation humorous was that Mike and Dr. Legiere were also being overheard by Zack, who was video conferencing to discuss some things she'd sent to him for analysis. Mike apologized for offending her nonexistent 'feminine sensibilities,' but she waved his words away and begun her preliminary examination of the new body. Zack, however, couldn't seem to help himself.

"Some libidos are inflamed by a proximity to death."

"Who's that?" Mike asked, not having been aware that anyone else was listening.

"My assistant, Zack, back in DC," Brennan explained. She turned the laptop around to show Mike and Legiere Zack's boyish features.

"Congratulations on your coffin sex," Zack commended.

"Mm-hmm," Legiere agreed, trying to maintain a straight face. Mike looked embarrassed.

"I've got work to do," he blustered, and he left the room.

Turning the attention back to the task at hand, she explained to Zack that the flooding unearthed remains that had already been embalmed and buried. Part of the job was identifying them for reburial, which meant the number of remains to be identified was far larger than the estimated number of hurricane fatalities. Brennan sighed again, feeling the weight of the undertaking.

Zack offered to fly down and assist her, but Brennan declined, reasoning that she would be leaving Thursday morning. She ended the call and noticed Graham Legiere in her peripheral, hovering on the opposite side of her exam table. He began to circle around it as he spoke.

"You know, there are reasons they call this The Big Easy, even after Hurricane Katrina." She didn't look up at him until a loud noise startled her. He had attempted to rest his hand on an exam tray as he passed it and had knocked it to the ground, scattering the medical instruments noisily. She gave a tiny, nervous laugh and was then distracted by the entrance of Dr. Embry and Detective Harding. Dr. Embry glanced over the file on the body she'd just started to examine.

"Dr. Brennan, meet John Doe 361."

"We found this one in the 9th Ward, sticking out of the mud," Harding explained. Legiere moved around to stand next to Brennan.

"Good afternoon, Detective Harding," Brennan said distractedly. She gave a quick assessment. "Male, forties."

"Badly decomposed. Looks pretty banged up," Embry added, handing the chart to Legiere.

"Yeah. Be nice to know if it was hurricane, flood, or foul play that killed him," Harding told them. Legiere had given the chart a cursory glance but looked up to address Harding.

"Detective Harding, have you been into the cooler lately? Apparently some libidos are inflamed by the proximity to death," he joked suggestively. Brennan's brow furrowed but she she didn't look at him. Over the past two days, the man had flirted with every woman who'd entered the room.

"God, Graham," Harding replied in disgust, "Thinking about sex in a place like this should be illegal. If it isn't already." She shook her head and left without another word.

Brennan spotted Sam Potter through the doorway and got his attention, explaining that she would need x-rays of John Doe 361. He nodded and entered the room to wait while Brennan covered the body in plastic.

"You've been working 48 hours straight. You need the evening off," Legiere encouraged, continuing the conversation he'd begun before displacing the exam tray.

"I only have one vacation day left," she replied distantly.

"What are you...doing penance for FEMA?" he joked. "Why don't you let me cook you dinner tonight?" His tone was friendly and only a little suggestive compared to some of the things he'd said to her that day. She had tried to avoid jumping to the conclusion that he was indeed flirting with her, as she was never all that skilled at picking up on things like that, and he had been vague enough to leave her with a fair degree of uncertainty.

Asking to cook her dinner was a clear invitation to his home, however. And coming from this man, she felt safe in assuming that it was also an invitation for sex.

"I appreciate the offer," she lied politely, "but I don't think it's a good idea. Besides, I'm seeing someone." His expression remained hopeful.

"Come on. I'm a southern gentleman, ma'am. Your honor will be respected," he insisted.

"Yeah," Sam scoffed before wheeling the body off for x-rays. Clearly she wasn't the only one who felt a bit wary of Legiere's character.

"Thanks, but I'll get something to eat later." Brennan _was_ hungry, having skipped lunch that day, but she had no desire to spend time alone with him.

She busied herself with other tasks until Sam returned with the x-rays. They showed, among other things, that a foreign object was lodged behind the teeth, and both men watched as she removed it carefully. She had no idea what to make of it, but Sam spoke up to explain.

"It is a gris-gris bag. Used in the practice of voodoo to prevent the dead man from speaking." Brennan raised her brows and examined the tiny pouch more closely.

"Do you practice voodoo? It would be helpful to have more information. The evidence suggests this man was indeed murdered."

"Yes. I would be happy to assist any way I can. This particular spell is Secte Rouge." Sam saw the confusion deepen in her features and continued, "It is...dark voodoo."

Brennan glanced back at the body and quickly considered her options. There was no way she would have time to solve a murder before her flight on Thursday, but she could at least give Detective Harding as much information as possible to get her started.

"I'm going to send copies of the x-rays to my assistant at the Jeffersonian, but in the meantime, I'd like to discuss the voodoo aspect of the case with you. Perhaps over dinner?" Some might have questioned her motives for the suggestion, had they not heard the business-like tone she used.

"Certainly, Dr. Brennan. I can be ready to leave in the next twenty minutes or so," Sam answered politely. Neither of them had so much as glanced at Graham Legiere while they'd conversed, but he spoke up suddenly.

"Sounds interesting, I'll tag along if you don't mind." He directed his next words only to Brennan. "Maybe we can grab a drink afterward."

She looked away uncomfortably but didn't argue. Perhaps he should hear what Sam had to say as well, since he would be remaining behind to help with the case after she left. After she dropped the x-rays into the outbox and called Zack to let him know they were coming, she sent a quick text to Booth.

' _Heading to dinner with coworkers. Will probably work late again, so I'll call you in the morning. Love you._

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Booth sat back in his office chair and read the text with a mixture of feelings. First and foremost, it was nice to see that she was eating a meal without his urging her to do so. But apparently that bit of progress came at a price. Who knows how late she would end up working this time. But Booth resisted the urge to chastise her for it. She was a workaholic; he'd known that from the beginning. In fact, Cullen was planning to be out of the office for the rest of the week, so he would probably be working late the next couple of days well.

He sighed a bit morosely as he replied, thanking her for letting him know and telling her he loved her as well. Booth tried not to be too disappointed that he wouldn't be hearing her voice that night. He'd had a devil of a time trying to sleep since she'd been gone, and what he really wanted was to go home and find her there waiting for him in his bed. _If only_.

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 _Wednesday_

Booth tried not to watch the clock too obsessively. She had said she would call that morning, but it was now no longer morning in New Orleans. He shook off the discomfort he felt and assured himself that she had probably just gotten caught up in her work and lost track of the time again. He could've called, but he was reluctant to interrupt her. _She'll be home tomorrow, and I'm overreacting_ , he thought. Booth did send a text, however, just asking if everything was okay.

By five o'clock, he had stopped trying to reassure himself and picked up the phone to call Angela. Brennan wasn't answering his calls or texts, and Angela hadn't heard from her either. Apparently Brennan had sent some x-rays of a John Doe to the lab, and they should be arriving tomorrow morning. But no one had actually spoken to her since yesterday evening.

Booth did his best to remain calm, but his gut was screaming that something had gone wrong. By midnight, he'd had enough. He quickly threw a few things into a duffle bag and headed to the airport.

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 _Thursday_

Brennan woke in a haze of pain. Pain in her head, her arm, her ear, her mouth… She could tell she'd been injured but didn't understand how. She opened her eyes slowly, coughing blood into her mouth and grimacing at the metallic taste. A wave of cold confusion washed over her when she realized what she was seeing. _Blood…_ It was everywhere. She was laying on the tile floor in the bathroom of her bed and breakfast suite, and a puddle of dark red blood had gathered beneath her head.

She sat up experimentally, gaging the pain and cataloging her injuries as she moved. _Definite concussion,_ she noted, _busted lip, bruises to the ribs and chest…_ _Broken wrist_ , she added mentally, gasping in pain after trying to use her hand to pull herself up from the floor. When she finally got to her feet, she looked at her own reflection and was stunned. There was blood all over face, her neck, her clothing, her hands… Her wrist was bruised darkly. _What had happened_?

Brennan tried to piece together an explanation for her condition, but she could recall no more than a few brief flashes of memory. _More blood...covering someone's hands, dripping down a wall from someone's body, a hand impaled with some sort of metal instrument, an infinity symbol painted with blood on a wall, a bloody knife on a different tiled floor than the one she stood on now… Legiere's smiling face._

Her mind worked frantically to come up with more details, but nothing was clear. Brennan's eyes rested upon her left ear in concern. One of her mother's earrings had been ripped out, and it had bled quite a bit as well. All things considered, a lost earring should be inconsequential. But Brennan had been permitted to take very little from her home before entering the system. It had been even harder to hold onto things when prying foster siblings or other children in the group homes took an interest in her possessions.

The landline rang from the sitting room, and she moved slowly to answer it. _What time is it?_

"Hello?" Brennan sat gingerly on the sofa with the phone.

"Dr. Brennan, your airport shuttle is here," said the voice on the other end.

"What? No… Um. My flight isn't til Thursday," she argued groggily.

"Today _is_ Thursday, Dr. Brennan."

Brennan lowered the phone in bewilderment. _Thursday?_

"What happened to Wednesday?" she mumbled, ignoring the voice on the phone for a moment. She grappled again with her complete lack of comprehension, but she simply couldn't make sense of the time loss. Her wrist throbbed a bit more painfully, and she raised the phone to her ear again. The woman was still talking to her, and Brennan finally responded.

"You can tell the airport shuttle to leave. I can't go home today. Charge my card for another... two nights in this room. And call me a cab, please. I'll need the address of the nearest emergency clinic."

The receptionist agreed quickly and gave her the location before hanging up to complete Brennan's other instructions.

Brennan remained on the couch, still disoriented. _Booth_. _If it was Thursday, had she talked to him yesterday? Maybe he would know…_ She managed to locate her cell phone and was dismayed to see the number of missed calls and texts, both from Booth and the lab. Apparently she hadn't spoken to anyone yesterday. Could she have really been unconscious for that long? It was early morning now, nearly six. Brennan pressed the speed dial to call Booth. It went straight to voicemail, and she scowled in disappointment. It wasn't like him to turn his phone completely off.

" _Booth, it's me. I won't be coming home today, I'm sorry. Something… something happened. I don't really remember... I'm okay, but I had some sort of accident, and I need to get checked out… There's an emergency clinic down the street from where I'm staying. I'll call you as soon as I know more. Don't try to come down here, I'll be fine. And I'll be home as soon as I can... I love you."_

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Booth exited the gate at a brisk pace, dodging other travelers and reading the signs to find the car rental desk. He'd managed to snag a last minute seat on a flight out of DC, and he'd spent the last few hours doing his best not to panic. He reached into his pocket to turn his phone back on, praying that she'd sent him a text or called since he last checked it.

His spirits lifted when he saw that she'd left a voicemail no more than a half hour ago, but his anxiety returned rapidly when he heard her voice. He hadn't heard her sound like that in weeks. Not since the day he'd pulled her off of a hook in an abandoned warehouse. He recognized her tone. Her words were reassuring, but she sounded disoriented...and terrified. Pained. She'd spoken to the EMTs in a similar way as she'd tried to convince them that she was fine.

 _An accident? What did that mean? She doesn't_ remember _? Bones is taking_ herself _to get checked out?_ That news stunned him. He'd had to drag her to the ER after Peter assaulted her, and he was fairly certain that she would've foregone medical treatment after Kenton as well, if they hadn't been heading to the hospital anyway. Booth shook his head at her instruction to stay in DC. _Yeah, right._

He flashed his badge to speed up the car rental process and punched the address of her bed and breakfast into the GPS. He'd ask for directions to the clinic there if he didn't see it on the way.

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The clinic was only a few blocks from where she was staying, but Brennan didn't feel up to walking even that short distance. The cab driver and the receptionist had both eyed her with alarm and concern, but she knew that her clothes and skin would be full of evidence that needed to be collected. So she'd left her room in the same state she'd been in when she regained consciousness.

It had occurred to her that the only person she could see in her dim memory was Graham Legiere, and she thought that he'd tried to get her over to his place for dinner. Or was it drinks? That was Tuesday. Had she gone? The last clear memory she could call up was him knocking over a tray of medical tools.

 _I had to have been drugged,_ she reasoned. _But for what purpose?_ The brief flashes of bloody hands and walls returned to her, but she tried to see beyond them. Legiere had been smiling at her, maybe laughing. Had he put something in her drink? Had he raped her? Her eyes widened as that thought sunk in. She shifted a bit, checking for pain in her vaginal area which she might not have noticed at first. There wasn't any. She was in the same clothes she recalled wearing on Tuesday. But if she'd missed a day, then she'd also missed a birth control pill.

The thought continued to gnaw at her as she realized the cab had stopped. Brennan attempted to pay the fare, but the driver hadn't set the meter. He refused to take her money and urged her to get into the clinic quickly. She was touched by his kindness and thanked him as she grabbed her bag from the seat next to her. She'd gotten a clean change of clothing together and thrown it into her shoulder bag with a few other odds and ends. Before leaving her room, she'd also called Detective Harding. She was the only law enforcement professional Brennan knew in New Orleans.

Her bloodied state ensured her a fast track through the waiting room, and she allowed the young doctor to examine her and clean her wounds before x-raying her right wrist. Brennan quietly asked for a rape kit, and the doctor completed it quickly. Her clothing was folded and set aside, and she changed into a hospital gown.

Harding entered the room then, looking concerned as she took in the state of Brennan's folded clothes and bruises.

"Detective Harding… I didn't know who else to call."

Harding nodded and instructed the doctor to take blood samples from the clothing.

"Maybe we'll get lucky, and they won't all come from you. Still hazy on the details?" she asked kindly.

"I'm not _hazy_ on the details. I… I don't remember _anything_."

"Nothing?"

"Um… Dr. Legiere knocking over a tray of instruments in the morgue… Then...nothing."

"That was the day before yesterday," Harding replied, troubled.

"I requested a rape kit," Brennan said vaguely.

"No sign of sexual activity, forced or otherwise," the doctor reported.

There was a commotion outside the door, and it burst open to reveal a frantic-looking Booth. He ignored the nurse who was attempting to stop him from entering and rushed straight to Brennan's side.

"Bones! You okay?"

"Booth, I told you not to come," she looked at him in shock. _How did he get here so quickly?_ Booth reached for her but hesitated, uncertain of where injuries were. She interpreted his caution and reached for his hand with her uninjured one. "I'm okay," she assured him. "How are you here?"

"Who's this?" Harding asked, intrigued.

"My partner, he's FBI," Brennan answered. Booth ignored the woman entirely.

"I was already on a plane when you called; that's why my phone was off. I missed your call by maybe thirty minutes. Jesus, Bones, what happened?" He was breathing heavily with his agitation. "You remember _anything_?"

"The tray falling over…" she answered with a sigh.

"Why can't she remember anything?" Booth asked the doctor sharply.

"Well, it could be the head injury…"

"Hairline stress fracture on my right distal radius, concussion, slight fever, torn earlobe… I lost one of my favorite earrings." She removed her remaining earring and showed it to him. Booth was frustrated and concerned.

"You're worried about an earring? You should really be worried about losing a whole day."

"I know, it's stupid. But these earrings were my mother's." Booth's expression softened in comprehension. He knew what it must've taken to hold onto them all this time. The doctor spoke up from across the room.

"Amnesia caused by any traumatic event, injury, or drug can erase memories before the event, not just after."

"Great, we'll just wait for a tox screen," Booth replied, trying tame his anxiety. It was easier now that he could see her and touch her.

"It's gonna be at least twenty-four hours," the doctor informed him apologetically.

" _Twenty-four hours?"_

"Well, most of the labs in the area were destroyed by the hurricane."

"We'll find out what happened," Harding assured him. "You just take care of your… uh… _partner_."

Booth glanced back at her as she left the room but didn't respond. Instead he lifted his free hand to touch Brennan's face gingerly. The contact was so light, she almost didn't feel it. He turned her chin slightly to examine her bruises and torn earlobe before his eyes met hers. She was overwhelmed at the emotion she saw there, and she closed the short distance between them to touch her lips gently to his.

The doctor smiled at them and excused himself quietly, but they neither saw nor heard him. Brennan shook her head in wonder. Once again, he was here when she needed him. _Knight in shining armor indeed,_ she thought, hoping she got the phrase right. His eyes had softened a little, but his expression remained a mixture of concern, anger, worry, and love. At least the panic had receded.

"What?" he asked, wondering why she was shaking her head.

"You're here," she said simply, allowing him to wrap her into a gentle embrace.

"How could I be anywhere else?"

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 **All together now: Awwwww. Even I said it after I wrote it. :) Bones tomorrow, next chapter on Friday!**


	22. Chapter 22

**Happy Friday! Thank you for the reviews and encouragement with this story so far. I meant to say on the last chapter that I can't believe this has over 300 reviews! Thanks so much. :) This chapter is the first that's really given me any trouble, so I especially want to thank 5546Laura, chosenname, and pauchacottle for the advice, listening, and proofreading. Particularly on the last scene.**

 **Thanks for reading my story!**

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Chapter 22

Booth helped her change carefully into her clean clothing and carried her bag for her to the check-out desk. She'd been given a prescription for pain medication, and she had tried to refuse it. If Booth hadn't been there, she might've succeeded.

"It'll come back," he told her from the driver's seat of his rental. His eyes swept sadly over the ruined structures of New Orleans.

"You don't know that. Head injuries are extremely unpredictable."

"And that's the third one you've had in less than a year," he supplied. "I get it. I was just trying to reassure you I guess." She squeezed the hand holding hers in thanks, but her phone rang and she pulled it free to dig through her bag for the device.

"Brennan."

"Regarding the x-rays of John Doe 361…" Zack began.

"John Doe 361?" she echoed vaguely.

"Yes. You sent us his x-rays."

"I don't remember that…"

"You don't remember?" Zack exchanged a troubled glance with Angela. _Dr. Brennan didn't forget things._

"What about the x-rays, Zack?" Brennan pressed.

"Late 40s. Mixed race. Anomalies on his spine, which is what I'm looking into. But the point is, his death was not accidental."

"I sent you the x-rays of a murder victim?"

"How'd he die?" Booth asked, loud enough for Zack and Angela to hear even without the speakerphone.

"Is that Booth?" Angela asked.

"Yes."

"So I guess he came down to see why you weren't answering your phone?" she joked lightly.

"Something like that. How did 361 die?" Brennan asked, pushing the conversation back to what was important.

"The pelvis shows crush fractures. There's also what appears to be a bullet hole in the skull, but there's no exit wound."

"Okay, keep working on it," she instructed. Brennan ended the call and tried again to remember what had happened to her.

"You don't remember the case?"

"No. And it's a murder…" Her stomach clenched, and she winced a little. "Ugh...I'm hungry."

"Well when was the last time you ate?" Booth asked, latching on quickly to their usual script. But the look she threw at him was enough to remind him that she had no way of answering that question.

"Oh, right. You have amnesia."

"Booth… I think I know a place," she told him, glad to be remembering _some_ thing. She directed him to the jambalaya restaurant that her co-workers had introduced her to on Monday and reached over to intertwine their fingers once more. It was amazing how just that small contact had the power to put her at ease, regardless of what was happening.

Once they were seated at a table, Brennan perused the menu while Booth played idly with a spice shaker. He continued to fidget after they'd ordered their food, and she repressed the urge to reach over and stop him. She understood that he needed a way to release his nervous energy.

They talked briefly about the last thing she could clearly remember, and Booth voiced the desire to talk to Legiere. She hadn't spoken much about her coworkers during their phone calls, and she certainly hadn't mentioned that she suspected Dr. Legiere might have been flirting with her. He hadn't attempted anything inappropriate, as Jesse Kane had done, so she hadn't felt it necessary to mention him to Booth.

"Dr. Brennan?" A man she recognized as Peter LeSalle approached their table as they were finishing their meals. She recalled that he was the chef, having met him on Monday. "I thought you were leaving today."

"Peter, this is my partner, Special Agent Seeley Booth."

Booth shook the man's hand and tried not to grimace at his name. The chef seemed to notice Brennan's injuries then and looked alarmed.

"My God. What happened to you?"

"I'm not certain, but the bruising suggests Tuesday night."

"After you left here?"

"I was here Tuesday?"

"What time?" Booth interjected. The man considered for a moment before replying.

"In at eight, left by nine. Don't you remember?" he asked her, confused. "You had dinner with Sam Potter."

"That's one of the co-workers you were talking about in your text?" Booth inquired. But Brennan had a far off expression on her face, and in her mind she saw Sam and Legiere across the table, saw Peter LeSalle's face, heard laughter.

"Bones… Bones?" He tried to bring her back to the moment, and her face showed awareness once again.

"We have to go to the morgue. Talk to Sam."

"Who's Sam exactly?"

"He's an orderly. He… he practices voodoo." She left some money on the table and rose to leave. Booth caught up with her quickly and followed her instructions for reaching the large church that was being used as a temporary morgue.

They found Sam Potter relatively quickly and sat down in the church balcony to speak with him. He explained that she had invited him to dinner after finding something lodged in the mouth of John Doe 361. He described it as a gris-gris bag, or a mojo, and explained that it was meant to silence the dead so they could not speak.

He went on to explain the voodoo principles of balance and harmony, as well as the existence of a darker following called Secte Rouge. Sam told them that the mojo had come from a Secte Rouge and contained black gum root, which could only be found in one shop since the hurricane. It was run by a man named Richard Benoit, whom Sam described as 'a good man.' As they turned to leave, Sam addressed her again, looking concerned.

"Dr. Brennan. A lost day? Perhaps a spell was cast on you as well."

"No disrespect, Sam, but it's not my religion." She turned to leave but noticed that Booth was eyeing Sam with a confused expression. "Come on, Booth."

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Once they were on their way, Booth scoffed at the idea of voodoo being a credible component of their investigation. Brennan explained evenly that it was a religion just like his and that they believed in prayer as well as the same saints he did. They had priests and believed in miracles, but they called them spells instead.

"We don't make zombies," Booth insisted.

"Jesus rose from the dead after three days," she said, pointing out the similarity. Booth turned his head quickly toward her, appearing to be speechless for a moment.

"Jesus is _not_ a zombie," he blustered. Brennan looked puzzled but quickly understood that she must have offended him somehow.

"No disrespect intended," she assured him. Her phone rang then, and she answered it while keeping an eye on Booth to see that he acknowledged her words. Zack spoke to her briefly about a possible congenital defect in the victim's spine, and Angela pressed her for more information.

"Alright, what's going on?" Angela demanded. Booth grabbed the phone and put it to his own ear.

"Okay, Bones has amnesia because a voodoo murderer put a spell on her to keep her from solving the murder of John Doe 361."

Brennan's mouth gaped in astonishment at his words. She attempted to take the phone back, but he switched it to the other ear so she couldn't reach it. Brennan rolled her eyes at his childishness.

"This is what I get for calling Jesus a zombie, isn't it?" she hissed, too quiet for Zack or Angela to hear. Booth smirked at her and didn't answer.

"That's fine if you don't want to tell me," Angela's disbelieving voice came through the phone. Booth was about to do some more convincing, but the line went dead. He handed Brennan her phone. She snatched it back and tucked it into her pocket with an irritated expression.

Booth continued to smile at the street in front of him. He really loved getting her riled up…

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When they arrived at the voodoo shop, the first thing Booth noticed was the car. There was a picture of a beautiful red Cadillac Brougham with an older man and a young woman posed in front of it. He salivated for a moment before the shop owner got his attention.

"We used it to evacuate," the man said.

"Did you restore it yourself or did you use voodoo?" Booth joked.

"Ah, an unbeliever," Benoit laughed in return. "What can I do for you?"

Getting down to business, Booth removed the mojo bag from his pocket and asked if he knew what it was. Benoit explained that it was dark magic: forbidden and very powerful. Like Sam Potter, he believed it was also made by someone who practiced Secte Rouge. When asked if anyone else worked there, the man indicated that it was just him and his daughter, Eva. He called her in from a back room, and she joined him. Both Benoit and his daughter claimed not to recognize Brennan and looked confused at even being asked the question. After a little persuasion, Booth convinced them to provide a list of anyone who had purchased one of the key ingredients to the mojo.

Brennan recognized one name within seconds. Graham Legiere.

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The front door of Graham Legiere's home was unlocked, and Booth put a hand on her arm to prevent her from entering first. She resisted the natural reaction to roll her eyes.

"What if he's not here?" Booth asked.

"Well, he's probably asleep," she reasoned. "He's been working nights." Brennan shouted his name once more and was met only with silence. She thought back to Tuesday night and said, "I think he invited me to dinner that night. Or maybe drinks."

Booth's expression was confused. "But you had dinner with Sam because of the mojo bag thingy."

"Yes, but… I think Graham invited himself along. He wanted to get drinks afterward maybe…" Brennan hated that she was so vague on the details. She was accustomed to near perfect recall. By comparison, her current predicament was maddening.

"Whoa, wait. Are you saying he had opportunity to drug you? Slip something into your drink?" Booth's blood began to heat at the thought. He tried diligently not to jump to conclusions and waited for her answer.

"I suppose it's possible. We only worked together for two days really, but he spent a good portion of it flirting with me. And every other female in the vicinity, for that matter." She continued to look around Legiere's home and didn't notice the livid expression on Booth's face. "I didn't realize it until Tuesday evening though," she added.

Booth shook his head at her naivete, but his mind was running a hundred miles an hour in the worst possible direction. Brennan noted his silence and turned to look at him. She could easily read the distress in his features.

"It's alright. I asked for a rape kit at the clinic. It was negative for any sexual activity."

He swallowed thickly at the pragmatic way she had made that statement. As though needing to ask for a rape kit was something that happened every day. Booth was opening his mouth to say something about it when he spotted something odd.

"Bones…"

She turned to look at what had caught his attention. It was a full-length mirror, covered almost completely in a black cloth. Something about it stirred Brennan's memory, and she welcomed the recollections with gratitude. She turned toward the stairs and began to climb, knowing now that she'd been here. Booth followed her quickly, hearing her breathing accelerate. He followed her down the upstairs hallway and was concerned by the disturbed look on her face.

"You okay?"

"Something bad happened here… And I got away." She had stopped to stare at a door which hung open slightly, and Booth moved ahead of her to check the room beyond it. The sight that met their eyes was gruesome. Graham Legiere's body was suspended against the opposite wall: flayed, disemboweled, and with a knife protruding from his chest. Another mojo bag hung around his neck, and blood dripped from every part of him, running down the wall in crimson lines. Brennan recognized the infinity symbol, also painted in blood on the wall next to him, from her dim flashes of memory.

"Oh yeah. Something bad."

"Don't touch anything," Brennan instructed unnecessarily. Booth was probably the last person who needed lessons in crime scene protocol, but she was disoriented and not thinking clearly. "We need to call it in to Detective Harding…"

Booth moved in front of her, standing between her and the body. He placed his hands gingerly against her jaw and waited for her to look into his eyes. When she did, his heart contracted at the fear and confusion he saw.

"Hey. It's okay. We'll figure this out, Bones. Even if you can't remember anything else, we'll find the truth. It's what we do. Right?" She nodded mutely. Booth guided her out of the room to make the phone call and then sat with her to wait.

Brennan's mind was racing with possibilities. _Why had she been here? Had she come of her own free will? That didn't seem likely, and yet she most definitely had been here._

Harding and a team of officers arrived a short while later, and they waited while she got a look at the body. She exited the room looking unnerved.

"What exactly were you doing here?" she asked them immediately.

"It's Graham, isn't it?"

"Tell you what, Dr. Brennan, I'm going to ask the questions."

Booth stiffened at her tone and felt a sense of foreboding. "Oh, come on, Detective. She was working with the guy."

"How closely?" Harding asked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Brennan didn't like the implication.

Harding didn't clarify but pushed for an answer as to what they were doing here. Booth explained that Legiere had purchased black gum root from a local voodoo shop, and they'd come to ask him why.

"Why?" Harding asked again.

"That's what we were came here to ask," Brennan repeated. Harding's expression became even more annoyed.

"You wanna look behind me and remind yourselves why I'm a little low on sense of humor?"

"That wasn't a joke," Brennan insisted, confused. Booth jumped in.

"Oh, no, she's not wisecracking. She just tends to be a bit literal." A small object on the floor caught his eye as Brennan continued to speak to Harding. He recognized it immediately as Brennan's lost earring, and he pocketed it before either woman noticed.

Brennan explained the voodoo connection they'd found to the body that Harding herself had asked her to identify. She mentioned Secte Rouge, and Harding's eyes narrowed with interest. She clearly suspected Brennan of Legiere's murder, and Booth knew that he needed to get her out of there as quickly as possible.

"I'm gonna tear this place apart. If I find one piece of evidence that ties you to the scene, I will take you into custody."

Brennan looked at her aghast, seeming to finally grasp that she was now a suspect.

"Wait, do you really think someone could go into a trance, commit a murder like that, and not remember it?" Brennan asked incredulously. Booth was tugging her arm and encouraging her to leave, but she ignored him.

"No," Harding answered with a gloating tone. "But I sure as hell think someone can fake amnesia."

"That's great, thank you, Detective." Booth finally succeeded in pulling Brennan away, placing his hand to the small of her back and ushering her back to their rental car.

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Brennan was troubled by the shift in Harding's manner toward her. She had been very polite to her since she'd met her earlier that week, had trusted her to give her answers on which bodies had been victims of foul play, and had been fairly compassionate when she'd met Brennan at the clinic. Brennan shook her head, bewildered.

They returned to the temporary morgue and met with Dr. Embry. Brennan introduced them, referring to Embry as Legiere's second in command. Booth cringed.

"Condolences on your sudden promotion."

"Um, why… do you think the job had anything to do with Graham being killed?"

"Bones has voodoo amnesia, Legiere is voodoo dead, and the last thing they worked on together was a voodoo ritual murder. So I'm… I'm thinking there might be some kind of connection."

Embry looked momentarily confused at the word 'Bones' and realized with surprise that Booth was referring to Brennan. He turned to ask her if Legiere's body was really as bad as he'd heard. Booth answered for her in the affirmative. Embry handed her the files pertaining to the cases she and Legiere had worked on Tuesday. Brennan flipped through them cursorily and frowned.

"The file I need is John Doe 361," she told him.

"According to our records, these are the only cases you worked on the day before yesterday. Four sets of remains: two were easy IDs, drown victims, processed and booted for burial. The other two were both males, John Does 349 and 350."

"I sent 361's x-rays to the Jeffersonian," she argued.

Well, I'll check again," Embry offered. He disappeared into crowd of other volunteers, and Booth and Brennan took a seat to wait for him.

"You know, baby… next time you take vacation days from work, I'm going to make sure it's for an actual _vacation_."

Brennan raised her brows in acknowledgment of his words but didn't contradict him. She was rather wishing that she and Booth were on that sandy beach he had described. Her head and wrist throbbed, and she closed her eyes momentarily. Booth watched her and recognized that she was in pain. He cursed inwardly and moved to put an arm around her shoulders, unable to miss the irony of their surroundings.

They were sitting on a church pew, and he had an arm around her much as his grandfather had so often done with his grandmother as they listened to the mass. The irony was, of course, that Booth doubted he would ever get Brennan to set foot inside a church for religious purposes. He smiled in spite of himself at the mental image of her expression were he to even suggest such a thing.

Brennan had leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed gratefully. And it was in that position that Embry found them. He said nothing, pretending not to notice that Dr. Brennan seemed awfully friendly with her 'partner.'

"Uh, Dr. Brennan?" Embry said tentatively. "There's no John Doe 361." Brennan's features shifted into confusion.

"Then whose x-rays did I send to DC?"

"No, I mean the file is gone."

Booth and Brennan exchanged a look, unsurprised. They followed Dr. Embry down to the room the volunteers had been referring to as 'the freezer' or 'the cooler.' In reality, it was nothing more than a large room cooled by several air conditioning units, but it served its purpose. When they entered the room, they immediately spotted Sam Potter chanting over each body and wearing a snake draped around his neck. Brennan barely spared him a glance, but Booth stared at him in concern.

She got his attention again by handing him her phone. She'd called the Jeffersonian on speaker. Booth followed her slowly as she methodically checked the tags on each body and discussed the progress on John Doe 361 with Angela and Zack. They explained that they'd found an odd pattern of strike marks on the images, but Angela had been unable to digitally reconstruct the pattern with only the x-ray. Brennan replied that unfortunately the man's actual remains had gone missing, so she was unable to send them. She retrieved the phone from Booth to end the call, looking exhausted.

"Bones, it's getting late. Let's go get some sleep and come at this fresh in the morning, ok?" She nodded, feeling a little defeated. Booth shot another wary glance at Sam and led her out of the room with a hand to her back.

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As soon as they were behind the closed door of her room, Booth pulled her into a tight embrace. He wanted nothing more than to drive to the airport and drag her onto a plane that very instant, but he knew that something like that would only make Detective Harding more suspicious. He lowered his face into her hair and breathed her in, allowing her familiar scent to calm him. Someone had hurt her, and again, he hadn't been there to stop it. What progress he'd been able to make with his guilt was nearly erased. _I shouldn't have let her come alone,_ he thought with remorse.

Brennan sank into his arms gratefully, burying her face against the base of his neck. She inhaled his comforting scent as well, soothed by his presence. The worst of it was that she couldn't keep from wondering if Harding had been right to suspect her. If she'd been drugged into a different frame of mind, and Graham had tried to rape her, what might she have done to him? Granted, crucifixion to a wall was not her typical behavior pattern, but she knew that she'd been there.

"I can practically hear the wheels in your head turning, Bones. What is it? Do you remember anything else that could help us out?"

Brennan pressed a quick kiss to his lips, and he hugged her a little tighter. She pulled out of his arms with a sigh and moved further into the room to put her things down near the bed before turning to look at him again.

"It could have been me."

"Do you remember that?" he asked sharply.

"No… But look at it objectively. Graham Legiere was killed between eleven p.m. Tuesday and three a.m. Wednesday. Not only do I not have an alibi, I… I can't even explain to _myself_ where I was. It could have been me."

"No, it couldn't," Booth denied, chuckling a little.

"Yes. Wha-How do you know?"

"I just know, okay? I'd bet my professional career on it," he answered, pacing in away from her a little. "I already did."

"What?"

"Nothing." He avoided her eyes.

"What did you do?" Brennan felt a hint of deja vu. The last time he'd been cryptic with her about his actions, he'd put his gun in a gang leader's mouth. _What now?_

"Bones! Stop. This is the last time and place that you want to be rational, okay? Let's just be wildly emotional and assume that you didn't psychotically murder a coworker who invited you over for dinner."

Brennan bit back the response in her head. _What if he'd wanted more than dinner?_

"What's that?" Booth asked in alarm. His attention had been caught by something on the bed, and she turned in that direction.

"What?"

" _That_ ," he insisted, pointing at her pillow. Brennan saw it too then, and she moved to lift it carefully.

"Ew…"

"Is it another voodoo dumpling?" he asked her. It was another mojo bag, and she opened it cautiously to examine the contents.

"It's some kind of flesh. And these are seashells. And leather, I think."

"Is that a human _tooth_?"

"Yes. A canine." She held it up to show him.

In the next moment, the door to her room burst open to reveal Detective Harding and several uniformed policeman. They had their guns drawn, and Booth's was out in an instant as well.

"Put down your weapon, Agent Booth," Harding instructed.

"Put down _your_ weapon. There's no threat from us," he replied firmly.

"You're holding a gun on me," she pointed out.

"Yeah, well, you know my finger is not on the trigger," he argued back, waving his trigger finger in the air a little. "It's the best I can do under the circumstances."

Harding lowered her gun and instructed the officers behind her to holster theirs as well. Booth copied them slowly.

"I'm here to arrest Dr. Brennan for the murder of Graham Legiere."

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Booth paced the empty room in agitation. He'd done his best to argue and reason with Harding, but Bones had undermined him. _She practically put the damn handcuffs on herself_ , he thought. Her words kept replaying in his mind. He'd gotten in Harding's face, telling her that he couldn't allow Brennan to be arrested. And as his girlfriend had stepped right around him to present her wrists to Harding, she had told him that it would be better if no one else died while they tried to get to the bottom of things. Booth had argued back that he wasn't planning on dying, and she had replied, " _It's not you I worry about."_

He knew she hadn't really believed that he would shoot Detective Harding, but it was at least nice to know that she understood how angry he was with the situation. This was _not_ how he'd wanted to spend his evening, he thought, grumbling to himself. Brennan had been in pain when they'd left the morgue. She needed a pain pill and a good night's sleep, and he needed to have her in his arms so that he could get some rest too. Sleeping without her had not been going well.

Booth tried desperately to remember who he might know in New Orleans, but only one name came to mind. And he knew for certain that she wouldn't be happy to get a call from him at this hour.

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 _Friday_

Brennan was hurting. It hadn't been the worst night's sleep she'd ever gotten, but it wasn't far down the list. Her broken wrist throbbed, and the acetaminophen one of the cops had given her hadn't done much for the pain.

She now sat in Detective Harding's office, trying to keep in mind that the woman was only doing her job. If Brennan had been in her position, she probably would've arrested her too. Harding asked if she'd been sleeping with Legiere, and Brennan answered in the negative. She explained that Legiere may have wanted to sleep with _her_ , but that she was in a committed relationship and would never have willingly had intercourse with him. She also reminded Harding that her rape kit had come back negative for sexual activity.

"I hope you've kept your mouth shut," said a surly female voice from behind her. Brennan turned to see Booth following a woman with short curly hair into the office. Curious as she might be about the newcomer, her focus was on Booth. He hadn't slept much, if at all, from the look of him. He was carrying her shoulder bag, and Brennan hoped her medication was still in it.

Booth introduced the woman as Caroline Julian, a lawyer from U.S. Attorney's office.

"You found a prosecutor to defend her?" Harding asked incredulously. "Interesting tactic."

"I've told Detective Harding everything I know so far," Brennan explained.

"She's a fool? You didn't tell me she's a fool," Caroline groused at Booth, who hurried to defend Brennan.

"Look, she's a brilliant forensic anthropologist-"

"Well, I have _three_ degrees. I've pioneered research in-"

"What's that?" Caroline asked abruptly, pointing to the mojo bag on Harding's desk.

"A gris-gris bag," Brennan replied. "I found it in my room and… I'm assuming the person who left it there is trying to frame me, so the tooth is probably Graham's."

"Three degrees and _still_ a fool. This interview is over, Rose. I need to speak to my client before she gives herself a lethal injection."

As soon as Harding was out the door, Booth was at her side. He held a gentle hand to the side of her face and gave her a quick once-over to verify that she hadn't been harmed during their time apart. He sighed and dug her pain medication and a bottle of water from her bag. Brennan took it from him gratefully.

"Thank you," she told him, swallowing the pill. "Did you sleep at all? You look terrible."

"Yeah, wonder why. What the hell were you talking to her for?" Booth answered, frustrated.

"I was just trying to help."

"Well sew those lips together, girl, because there is no such thing as 'help' in the New Orleans Police. They just want to close the case as quickly and easily as they can. And you are making it _Christmas time_ for them," Caroline blustered.

"Okay, listen, there's no way Bones could've killed Legiere. I mean it's just not her." Booth shook his head emphatically, and Caroline pursed her lips. She wasn't entirely sure to make of his behavior toward Brennan. He hadn't said anything about also being _in love_ with the woman he wanted her to help.

"I'm doing you a favor, taking this case, Booth. But as the lady cop says, I'm a prosecutor. And as it stands now, I could try this case in my PJs and still get a conviction."

"Well shouldn't you get to know your clients before you make snap judgments?" Brennan asked, a bit offended. She ignored Booth's admonishment.

"Fine. Stop me when I get something wrong… Trained in three types of martial arts, two assault charges, registered marksman with the NRA, hunting licenses in four states-"

"You hunt?" Booth asked in surprise.

"Only for food," she answered defensively.

"-Shot an unarmed man," Caroline continued.

"Well, he was trying to set me on _fire_."

Caroline rolled her eyes, and Booth asked her to arrange the bail so they could leave. She huffed her way out of the room, leaving them alone.

"Bones, you gotta keep your mouth shut around the cops here, okay? I know you want to help, but in this case, it just looks bad."

"I don't want to be accused of refusing to cooperate. That would look worse, wouldn't it?"

"No, they want to pin this murder on you. Don't help them do it. Please just trust me?"

Brennan looked into his worried eyes and nodded, conceding the issue. He did understand people better than she did. Booth smiled at her and leaned down to kiss her softly, pleased that she'd finally stopped arguing. She pressed a palm to his cheek and deepened the kiss, ignoring the pain in her busted lip.

"I want to go home," she said when he finally lifted his mouth from hers.

"Yeah. Me too."

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They ate lunch at the jambalaya restaurant again and were joined this time by Sam Potter. Booth described the contents of the mojo bag they'd found on her pillow, and Sam explained that it was intended to make her forget. Brennan hotly denied that she was under any kind of 'spell,' and even Booth, who had been poking fun at voodoo nearly the entire time he'd been in New Orleans, reminded her that she'd lost an entire day, as if voodoo magic could be the logical cause of her amnesia.

"I don't believe in magic," she maintained, watching Sam leave the restaurant.

"Exactly. You're a surprising woman. That's probably how you got away that night." They shared a smile, and she reached across the table with her good hand and squeezed his.

"You have a lot of faith in me."

"Yeah, well… You're strong. The strongest person I've ever known. And… they think they can get away with it, you know?"

Brennan looked slightly confused and shook her head.

"They burn their victim, they blow 'em up, they toss 'em in the ocean, they bury them in the desert, they… they throw 'em into wood chippers. Sometimes, you know… years go by. They relax, and they start living their lives like they didn't do anything wrong. Like they didn't spend somebody else's life in order to get what they got. They think they're safe from retribution, but you… You make those bastards unsafe."

"I couldn't do it without you, Booth." He gave her his best charm smile and his chest puffed out just a little.

"Yeah, so… maybe you should listen to me, huh?"

"I'll try," she answered playfully. _Always stubborn_ , he thought. _Just as he liked her._ If Angela had been there, she'd have called them out on the eye sex, but today all they had was-

"I walk in on something?" Caroline asked rhetorically. She fought the urge to roll her eyes at the two of them. _Partners_ , she snorted inwardly. _Who the hell they think they're kidding?_ She ordered coffee and a donut from a passing waiter and tossed Brennan's medical records onto the table before settling herself into a chair.

The couple released one another's hands regretfully, and Caroline launched into defense strategy. She wasn't at all dissuaded by the voodoo angle, and she felt marginally more optimistic when Brennan looked at her own x-rays and determined that her fracture had been misdiagnosed. There was bone trauma that would have prevented her from stabbing anyone.

Brennan took a call from Zack to discuss what progress they'd made with the John Doe's x-rays. While she was on the phone, Caroline turned to Booth with a taunting expression.

"You know, you could've told me that you happened to be head over heels for the woman you wanted me to help, Seeley Booth."

He smiled indulgently at her and then at Brennan as she spoke to her squints. There was no point in denying it. He was most definitely 'head over heels.'

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Zack had successfully identified John Doe 361 as Rene Mouton. After a few calls to the Bureau, Booth had discovered that Mouton had been the head of a local voodoo church and by all accounts had been a very good man. He had rescued many people during Katrina but had disappeared not long after the levees broke.

Sam interrupted their discussion about Mouton as they stood in the morgue. He suggested that the man might have been murdered because he'd been a houngan, a powerful and well-loved priest. He insisted that the mojos, Graham's murder, and Brennan's amnesia were all the work of a bokor: a Secte Rouge sorcerer. Booth was dubious, but Brennan felt like they might finally be getting somewhere. She may not have believed in magic, but the murderer clearly did.

"Look in the meantime, somebody here had the ability to hide Mouton's remains," Booth said, trying to bring them back to the real issue.

"James Embry," Brennan offered.

"Me," said Sam.

"Mike Doyle."

"Say you wanted to hide a particular body, and you didn't want anyone else to find out. Where would you put it?" Booth asked.

Brennan turned to him with a promising look in her eye but said nothing as she walked toward the cold storage room. It was filled with coffin-sized cardboard boxes.

"If I wanted to hide a body, I'd change the name tag on the coffin," Sam suggested. They began checking each box meticulously.

"You know, I find it hard to believe that horny little Mike Doyle is a voodoo sorcerer."

Booth's eyes narrowed a bit in surprise. _First of all, how does she even know that word? And second, how many of these guys have been hitting on her this week? Good grief…_

Sam opened the next box and uttered a cry of shock. Inside was a very dead Mike Doyle, laying on top of Rene Mouton.

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"Dr. Embry says you can identify the bag of bones?" Harding asked her, gesturing to the double-occupied coffin. Brennan scowled a little at her disrespect for the deceased.

"The _skeletal remains_ belong to a man named Rene Mouton. His skull is missing," Brennan stated. Embry had done a quick autopsy on Mike Doyle, and announced his findings to the group.

"Looks to me like Mike Doyle was drugged, a spike was driven through his head during or immediately following sexual intercourse."

Booth shuddered in disgust at the image.

"Well, it appears that Dr. Brennan, Dr. Embry, and Sam Potter here are the three people who could've pulled this off," Harding surmised. Booth wasn't interested in hearing Brennan be accused of murder again.

"Well Sam Potter brought us to the body. We called you in. Who does that leave?"

"Oh, please. There's no security in this place. Anybody could've gotten in here," Embry insisted when Harding looked in his direction. But Brennan was still focused on his autopsy findings, and she addressed Embry directly.

"You said that Mike was having sex when he died. James, he must've been killed by the coffin girl."

"What?" Harding asked.

"What's her name?"

"Well, I never got her name…" Embry answered Booth.

"Is there a mojo bag in Doyle's mouth?" Brennan asked Harding, already predicting an answer in the affirmative.

"I don't feel comfortable releasing that…"

"The girl is a voodoo sorcerer. She's Secte Rouge," Brennan explained. There was an uncomfortable pause while Harding stared contemplatively at Brennan. Sam interrupted a little awkwardly to ask if he could scatter something over Mouton's remains to purify them. Harding instantly scoffed at him and denied the request, but Brennan asked him exactly what it was that he wanted to scatter over them. The ingredients he recited would do no harm to the remains, and Brennan said as much to Harding. She relented with poor grace.

When Sam dusted Mouton's remains with the ash mixture, the pattern that Angela had been unable to reconstruct became more visible, and Booth recognized it immediately.

"That was part of an emblem of a 1959 Caddy Brougham. Oh boy…"

"What?" Harding pressed.

"The voodoo shop guy owns a 1959 Cadillac," Brennan recalled. Booth followed her train of thought perfectly.

"And he's got a voodoo daughter."

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Harding went to the voodoo shop with them, where they found Eva Benoit crucified to a wall in the basement of the shop, just as Graham had been. Her father's reaction was horrified, but as Brennan analyzed the room, she realized that the girl couldn't possibly have run herself onto the spike now protruding from her back. She had to have been pushed onto it, and the person doing the pushing would've been injured as well.

She ripped open Richard Benoit's shirt to reveal a bandaged wound, and the man didn't attempt to deny it. He did, however, try to intimidate Brennan with some voodoo chanting, and Brennan put a stop to it by poking him hard in both eyes.

Once Benoit was in custody, Harding gave Brennan clearance to leave town and apologized for her mistake. Booth thought his girlfriend was far more forgiving than he would've been. A few short hours later, they were on a plane and headed for DC.

"Thank you, Booth," Brennan said without preamble. They'd leaned their seats back and moved the armrest from between them, cuddling against one another contentedly.

"For what?" he asked, looking down at her wide blue eyes.

"Everything. For coming to help me, for believing in me… For loving me. All of it."

Booth smiled at her tenderly and hugged her tighter against him.

"You're welcome, Bones." They were silent for a few more minutes before Brennan recalled that he'd been keeping something from her.

"Will you tell me now what you did to risk your career?"

He sighed and shifted a little to pull the earring out of his pocket. She gasped when he placed it in her hand.

"Where did you find that?"

"Legiere's place."

Brennan raised her brows in surprise. He'd concealed evidence in a murder investigation. She'd had no alibi, could have even had a justifiable reason for self defense, had no recollection of the night in question whatsoever… And yet still, he'd believed in her. Her eyes filled as she looked at the silver earring. She'd been so upset when she thought she'd lost it. Almost as though doing so would've hurt her mother's feelings, even though she knew the idea was ridiculous.

She looked back to his face with a watery smile. Her blue eyes were shining with love, and he smiled back at her before pressing his lips to hers.

"I love you, Bones."

"I love you too."

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 _She was injured. Again._

He watched them cross the parking garage from his SUV to the elevator and was pleased to note that she was at least letting him carry their bags. She was supposed to have been on a business trip, not working an FBI case. And yet here she was again, this time coming home with an injured wrist, a busted lip, and a nasty bruise on her forehead.

He had given this FBI guy the benefit of the doubt the last time he'd seen them, and now he was second-guessing himself. But he immediately felt like a hypocrite at that thought. _It wasn't as though_ he'd _done such a great job of protecting her either._

The couple shared a smile and a gentle kiss before disappearing into the elevator, and he thought back to the first time he'd made a conscious effort to check on his daughter. Well, both of his children, really. He'd tracked Russ to a run-down apartment in California and had watched him for a few days. He'd grown increasingly concerned that his daughter hadn't seemed to be with him. She'd been barely eighteen at that point, and she should have just graduated from high school. He'd supposed she could have been attending college somewhere, but it was summer. She should've been with her brother…

After his wife died, Max Keenan had found it more and more difficult to stay away from his children. That wasn't to say that she hadn't been just as troubled by their situation and as desperate to return to their kids. But when there were two of them, they could reason with each other. They could pull one another back in moments of weakness, remind each other of just what was at stake if they unwittingly led the wrong people to their children. But now it was just him. No one to reason with him, no one to pull him back.

Max had told himself that it was just a simple check-in. He had convinced himself that if he found them surviving reasonably well, that would be enough for him. But Tempe hadn't been there, and the thought that his enemies might have found her after all had terrified him. It had taken him weeks to discover that she'd become a ward of the state of Illinois shortly after he and his wife's departure. It took him months to finally tracked her down, and his relief when he had first gotten a glimpse of her had been palpable.

She'd been a freshman at Northwestern University, moving about campus with a backpack full of books weighing down her thin frame. She'd borne an even closer resemblance to her mother than she had three years prior, and it had made him simultaneously happy and heartbroken to look at her. But the more he'd watched her, the more he'd seen. This was not the same young woman he and his wife had left for her own safety. She was no longer the gangly, awkward teenager he'd known. She was more beautiful, certainly, but infinitely more sad. There was a haunted look about her that told him she'd been suffering in his absence. Max's guilt had been intense, as was his disappointment in his son. He'd thought that Russ could be trusted to take care of Tempe. He had known it wouldn't be easy for them of course, but how could he have simply walked away and left her with strangers?

He'd stuck around for a little while, always out of sight and just long enough to make sure that she was really okay. She had seemed to be. But Max couldn't escape the knowledge that she was alone in the world. He couldn't be positive, but he would've laid odds that she and Russ didn't speak. So he'd resolved to check in on her every so often.

He had hidden among the massive crowd to watch proudly as she received her first degree, thankful that some friends or teachers had convinced her to go through commencement even if she thought she didn't have anyone there to see it. She'd graduated at the top of her class and had gone on to pursue her postgraduate degrees, which had required her to publish numerous papers and articles. That had made it much easier for him to keep track of her from that point, as all of her publications typically stated where she was publishing _from_.

When she had begun to travel more frequently, however, it had become more difficult to keep an eye on her. He'd been checking in every few months or so, but there had been no way he could have followed her out of the country. So he had been more than a little surprised when he'd spotted her name on a book in the window of a New York bookshop. Her name was in the media then, and while Max was extremely proud of her, the exposure had concerned him. He'd spent more than half his life living under the radar, in one way or another, and his daughter seemed to be determined to do the exact opposite.

The next time he'd checked on her, not long after her novel was published, he'd been surprised to see that she wasn't alone. Sure, she'd dated here and there, and he'd happened to see her with those men from time to time. But none of them had seemed to be in her life for very long. This one was different. This one looked like a cop.

Max had hung around for several days that time, and he'd noticed that the good-looking man in the suit never seemed to leave her side. With a little digging around, he had discovered that his Tempe-the daughter of two former bank robbers-had begun working with the FBI. This man, Special Agent Seeley Booth, was her _partner_ , and together they worked homicide cases involving decomposed remains. The thought of it turned Max's stomach a bit, but as much as the potential dangers of the job concerned him, he couldn't help feeling even more proud of his daughter. Parents always hope that someday their children will do something to change the world. Few ever get their wish, but his daughter was really doing it.

Not long after he had learned the identity of this new person in her life, he had followed them from the museum where she worked and watched the black SUV park along a tree-lined city street for a few minutes. Max had parked a short distance away and watched them interact through the vehicle window. They were smiling at each other as though they were the only two people in the world, and the sight had made him smile. That was, at least, until his daughter jumped out of the car and proceeded to argue with a Middle-Eastern man. The guy touched her shoulder as if to move her out of his way, and Max had watched his daughter flip the unknown man to the ground before placing her foot against his throat. He'd seen her coming in and out of her martial arts classes in the past, but what had surprised him was that her partner merely stood back to watch. The agent wore a troubled expression but simply led her back to the vehicle with a hand to the small of her back.

Max hadn't known what to make of it, and although he hadn't continued to follow them that day, he'd found himself puzzled by the contradiction. This Agent Booth was responsible for his daughter's safety while they worked their investigations, but he'd done nothing to stop the man-whom Max presumed was a suspect-from putting his hands on her. Either the agent was slacking in his protective duties, or he'd known that his Tempe could handle the guy. Max hoped it was the latter.

His uncertainty had led him to hang around a little longer than he usually did. Max had been overly cautious as always, switching vehicles and constantly watching his own back as well as his daughter's. He had watched her smile and laugh with her partner, had watched her bicker with him frequently, and he'd been reminded that her mother had once enjoyed arguing with him in much the same way. His little girl was happier than he'd seen her since she was fifteen, and Max drank in the sight of her beautiful smiles.

So focused was he on his daughter that Max had failed to notice that he wasn't the only one watching her. It wasn't until he watched her partner confront a man who sped out of her parking garage that he realized someone with less honorable intentions had been stalking her. Max felt like an idiot for not having seen it, but he was more interested in the conversation between his daughter and the FBI Agent. Max had been parked in a darkened corner of the garage, sitting with his windows rolled down slightly, and he had heard every word.

"He's been back here before?" The agent was speaking much louder than necessary, considering his close proximity to her. She nodded, but didn't speak, and his voice grew even angrier as he pelted her with more questions.

"How many times, Bones? Why didn't you tell me? Or call the cops? Have you seen him anywhere else? Did you get your locks changed?" His daughter had stiffened, and Max had recognized an expression on her face that signaled danger. He'd almost felt sorry for the guy.

"If you actually want me to answer any of those questions, you're going to need to let me speak."

"How many times?"

"A few. Usually in the garage, once or twice on the street outside."

"How often?"

"Often enough that I spoke to security about it. I told you _that_." But the agent seemed to grow angrier still, and his face was within inches of hers. She wasn't backing down.

"But you left out the key element, didn't you, Bones?" Max had been puzzled. Was this guy calling her 'Bones?' And getting away with it? "Why didn't you tell me that this creep has been watching you for _weeks_?"

 _If they only knew_ , Max had thought wryly.

"Because he hasn't harmed me or even attempted to come near me in all that time. And I haven't noticed him anywhere else. You're overreact-"

"Stop. You're a genius. Maybe not when it comes to reading people, but you're smart enough to know when a person is dangerous, right?"

"Yes!" She was shouting now, standing straight and tall, right in his face.

"Then you'll understand why I'm not leaving you alone. Let's go."

His daughter had looked like she wanted to argue, but Max had been relieved to see that the agent was having none of it. He would keep her safe. His daughter's lack of fear of the man shouting in her face had made it clear that her partner was angry _for_ her rather than _at_ her. Max had gathered from their conversation that she'd seen the unknown man before. _But she didn't see me_ , he'd thought with a sad smile. He was too good at living in the shadows now.

Max had watched the drama with her stalker unfold from afar, and he'd discovered that the creep was the same man he'd seen in her company before her last trip out of the country. He'd watched his daughter's happiness seem to grow brighter every time he saw her, apparently due to the cop, and when her ex was arrested, he'd felt it was safe to move on for a while. Her work partner may not have been a romantic partner yet, but Max had no doubt that he eventually would be. Even from the safe distance he maintained, he could see that this Agent Booth was absolutely smitten with his daughter.

So he'd left again, feeling that he could trust her safety to the lovesick FBI Agent, which is why he'd been alarmed and reasonably irritated to read a news article reporting that his daughter had been on the wrong side of a gang-related shooting in Little Salvador. In a panic, he had broken one of his own rules-no contact.

He'd called her. _Twice_. He'd used a burner phone and dialed the only number he knew: her home number. Max hadn't known exactly what he would've said if she'd picked up the phone. He might not have said anything. Perhaps he would've simply trusted that if she was capable of answering the phone, she must be safe. But she hadn't answered either call, and he knew he was being foolish by trying to contact her at all. He'd disposed of the phone and took the coward's way out: he watched for her again.

She and her partner had exited the elevator the following morning, looking slightly stressed but unharmed. They'd been holding hands as they walked to his SUV, and Max had breathed a sigh of relief. If they were more than work partners now, he felt pretty certain that he could continue to trust the agent to keep an eye on things. He assumed that the shooting must've just been an unfortunate and isolated incident relating to their jobs.

He had eased up then but stayed in town to do some digging on the man who'd been stalking her. The details of his guilty plea were published in the legal section, and Max was angry that someone who had physically harmed his daughter had gotten off so lightly. The very least he could do was see to it that this St. James guy had the shit beaten out of him once or twice a week. It wasn't the first time he'd used his criminal contacts to right a few wrongs for the sake of his kids.

Max had been on his way out of town when her name appeared in the news in relation to _another_ shooting, this time on K street. But when he'd tracked her down to check on her again, she was with her partner, and the expression on his face was so alert and observant that Max had been worried he might be spotted. So he'd backed off.

For the following month, he'd watched the internet for anything relating to her, but there had been nothing. Things had seemed calm. But now she appeared to have been roughed up yet again, and Max was losing his patience with both his daughter and the FBI Agent. She was tough; that much was obvious. But she wasn't invincible, and someone needed to talk some sense into her. Russ seemed to be doing better after his release from prison, and clearly it was Tempe who was in need of some guidance. She wasn't trained to be an FBI field agent, so what the hell was she doing acting like one?

Max was seriously considering speaking to her in person at this point and hoping that the plastic surgery he'd undergone would be enough to disguise his true identity even from her. But he knew she was good at her job, and his cosmetic work might not be enough. Could she accept him back into her life if he ever did summon the courage to come clean with her? Would it ever even be safe to do so? What did she think had happened to them all those years ago?

Could she ever forgive him for leaving?

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 **Thanks for reading! Leave me some love and have a fantastic weekend! :)**


	23. Chapter 23

**Thank you for all of the wonderful feedback on the last chapter! It was great to hear from some lurkers too. ;) I'm glad I could still surprise most of you (Way to go, AFairy88, haha). This chapter will bring the story to over 200K words, and we're still a good 5-6 chapters from the end I think. But that's conjecture, and we all know how dangerous that can be. ;)**

 **Special thanks to chosenname for proofreading yesterday. My eyes were just not wanting to cooperate. Read, review, and enjoy!**

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Chapter 23

Booth dropped their bags near the front door and turned around to lock it. It was extremely late-or very early, depending on one's perspective-and he wanted nothing more than to collapse into a bed and sleep for a week, preferably with his arms wrapped around a certain sexy genius. He dug her pain medication out of her bag and grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen before flicking off the lights.

Brennan had shuffled tiredly to the bedroom, removing articles of clothing as she went. As exhausted as she might be, a shower was an absolute necessity. Not only had she been on an airplane-which always left her feeling a little unclean-she'd spent the previous night in a jail cell and a small part of the day in a morgue full of way-too-fleshy remains.

Booth followed her, stopping to place the pills and water on her nightstand before removing his clothing as well. The shower in her master bathroom was large, but most of the space was wasted. They stood almost too close together to get properly clean, but they managed, helping each other wash in slow, soothing caresses.

Brennan had removed the brace from her wrist, and Booth scowled at the colorful bruise. He lifted it to his lips with excessive caution, and she smiled drowsily at him. When he didn't return it, her eyes narrowed slightly, and after a moment, she recognized the guilt on his face.

"Booth…"

"I'm alright, Bones," he assured her, not needing her to finish her sentence to know what she was going to say.

"No you're not."

"I will be. I promise. I just need a little time."

Brennan nodded, but still wanted to offer him comfort. "I feel guilty too," she told him quietly, leaning her head against his chest as they stood under the stream of water. He stiffened in confusion at her words.

"Why?"

"I don't remember how, but… somehow I allowed myself to be in a vulnerable enough position to be drugged or… something… and a man died. I wasn't the one who killed him, but I can't help wondering if… if I had been myself in that moment… would I have been able to save him?"

"No, Bones. Don't go there. You were a _victim_ in this, okay? There is nothing that you could have or should have done differently-"

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do, because I know you. You know how to watch out for yourself in situations like that, and even though you were out of it, you still fought back, Bones. You did the best you could, and I'm proud of you. So don't you dare blame yourself for any of this. Understand?"

She was silent for a few moments before nodding slightly into his chest. Brennan knew he'd felt it because his arms tightened around her a little more.

"I suggest you take your own advice," she said, looking up into his eyes. "If none of it was my fault, then it certainly wasn't _yours_."

Booth sighed and brushed his lips gently over her wounded forehead. He knew she was right.

"I know, Bones. I know that's what makes sense, but sometimes it's hard to think that clearly. Especially when it comes to you."

"Well then I guess it's a good thing I'm here to remind you," she replied with a tiny smile. He grinned back this time.

"A very good thing."

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They had fallen into the bed without bothering to dress after their shower, and Booth woke to the delicious feeling of her satiny skin against him. He was spooned around her, his right arm cushioning her head and wrapping around her torso while his left was draped possessively over her, holding her uninjured hand.

Her hair had dried as she slept, and the tangled curls smelled like heaven against his face. Her expression was untroubled and, for the first time since he'd seen her Thursday morning, didn't appear to be pained in any way. He'd asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital to get a real cast for her wrist, but she'd refused. She explained that the fracture was miniscule and would remodel quickly, even if the bruising made it look worse than it was.

Booth watched her sleep for a little while, thankful that it was Saturday, and they had nowhere to be. While he still felt guilty that she'd gotten hurt again, it was relief that overwhelmed him in those moments. She could so easily have been taken from him… again. He closed his eyes and thanked God yet again for her safety, pressing his lips to her neck.

Brennan stirred at the contact and whimpered a little in her sleep. Even in her sleep, she responded to him. The knowledge made him smile against her skin. He glanced at the clock briefly to make sure she'd slept a reasonable number of hours before he released her hand and began trailing his fingers lightly over her curves.

Her response was nearly instantaneous. She moaned, moving her hips backward to press into him, and her hand reached behind her to grasp his hip, pulling him forward against her. Booth's fingers drifted almost lazily over her breasts, causing the tips to harden at the stimulation. She arched into his touch, craving more. She always wanted more of him. More touching, more kissing, more love-making… more Booth. And right now she wanted nothing more than his hands on her, his mouth hot against her skin and lips. But he kept his caresses maddeningly slow and light, and it wasn't long before she was breathing heavily and turning to face him.

"Are you tormenting me on purpose?" she teased, opening her eyes to look at his handsome face. His lips curved into that smile that never failed to make her heart accelerate.

"No… Just taking it slow," he explained, brushing his fingertips once more down the length of her. "Appreciating every single inch of you."

"Mmmm… I suppose it's hard to argue when you put it that way." She closed her eyes again at his touch, and a tremor ran through her. A slow ache began between her thighs, and she whimpered at the desire for his hands to move lower.

"You're so beautiful, Bones. Looking at you sometimes… it makes my chest ache. Makes it hard to breathe, hard to think. I don't think you really understand how it affects me."

"Well," she smiled, "sometimes it's fairly obvious." Brennan rocked her hips into him to make her point. His desire was physically evident, but that wasn't what he'd meant.

"I don't just mean how you affect me sexually, Bones. It's so much more than sex. I need you like I need air. I could spend _years_ just...looking at you. _Lifetimes_ touching you… and I'd still want more. I really don't know how I lived for so long without you. And when I look back, it's like I was living a half-life without even knowing it. You make everything better, baby."

His gaze was intense, honest. He continued to move his hands leisurely over her skin, determined to feel every single inch, just as he'd said. Brennan stared into his dark eyes and felt herself at a loss for words-something that only seemed to happen around him. He'd described the same need that she'd felt for him every day for months now. The same need that had terrified her at first, but that she had fought consciously to embrace. She'd known that he returned her feelings, but to hear him describe it that way… It was as though his words touched a part of her that she hadn't even known existed. Booth would've called it her soul.

As usual, Booth seemed to be able to read her perfectly, and he closed the distance between their lips, kissing her with a slow, deep passion that fanned the flames of their desire. He was cautious of her injured lip, but Brennan felt no pain. Not in her lip or anywhere else. She felt only pleasure, especially when his hand dipped lower to slide against her slick folds.

 _She was always ready for him_. No matter how things got started or how long it had been since he'd last touched her, she was _always_ ready. Booth had wondered often if she walked around that way throughout their workday, and he hoped he remembered to ask her later. Right now he was enjoying her kisses too much to interrupt them with words.

Brennan spread her thighs to accommodate him and wrapped her good arm around his shoulders from beneath him. Her lips were still moving against his when she felt him dip a long finger into her, and she gasped against his mouth. Booth stroked his hand skillfully against her, adding another finger and causing her to cry out. He took the opportunity to fasten his lips to her neck, connecting with that one spot that always made her tremble in his arms.

"Booth," she whispered, her voice low and sultry with need. "Please… I need you."

"Tell me," he murmured hotly against her throat.

"I need you inside me. Right now." She gasped again as his fingers plunged deeply into her once more before withdrawing. He rolled her gently to her back and settled between her thighs. _He was always ready for her, too._

Booth sank into her with aching tenderness, framing her face with his hands. He watched her incredible eyes change color as he entered her and began to move, stroking into her so deeply that he felt he could lose himself within her. Her mouth gaped in amazement at the way he could fill her so completely. She clutched his shoulders, desperate for more movement, more contact, more intensity.

Booth took his time, savoring the perfect feel of her beneath him. He moved in a smooth, slow rhythm that built their passions gradually until they were poised at the very edge of release.

"Come with me, Booth. Together."

"Yes…" He seized her lips with his once more and surged into her, pushing them both into one of the most intense orgasms they'd ever shared. Brennan was lost in wave after wave of mind-numbing pleasure, and she reveled in the overwhelming intimacy of the sensation. She couldn't tell where he ended and she began. She couldn't discern her thundering heartbeat from his. Couldn't distinguish his labored breathing from her own.

"I love you, Booth. So much." He smiled at her words and kissed her with a gentle sweetness that made her eyes burn slightly.

"I love you too, baby."

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It wasn't until they had finally pulled themselves out of bed and started their day that Brennan realized their mistake. She had just finished dressing and had moved to the bathroom to brush her hair and teeth, and take her birth control pill.

Booth was talking about going out to grab a late lunch, and he didn't immediately notice when her movements slowed to a stop, leaving her standing completely still in front of the bathroom mirror. She was staring at the tiny plastic case in her hand, and her mind was racing.

 _She had missed a pill on Wednesday._

Yes, she had doubled up on Thursday as her doctor advised, and it was only one day, but… _What are the odds?_ She calculated her cycle carefully and felt only a little comforted that it wasn't an optimal time to conceive. But she also knew well enough that fertilization can happen at any time, and her cycle wasn't always consistent, even with the pill.

Booth seemed to have finally noticed her blank expression.

"Bones?"

 _Oh God… Would he be angry? Upset? Scared?_ She turned to find him staring at her curiously.

"Are you okay? What's wrong?" Booth didn't know what to make of her behavior. She looked surprised… and nervous. "Bones…"

"I'm okay."

"Then why are you just standing there? Did you even hear what I was saying?" She shook her head no, and Booth was even more concerned. He reached both hands to her upper arms, rubbing up and down to soothe her. Something was clearly wrong. "Hey. Talk to me."

"I... " _How could she say it out loud?_ "I'm sorry, I… um. I didn't think about it earlier…"

"Think about what? Come on, Bones you're making _me_ nervous." Brennan swallowed with difficulty.

"Since I lost an entire day on Wednesday… I also missed a pill." Brennan watched anxiously as the meaning of her words registered in his mind. His eyes widened slightly, but he didn't look angry or upset. He did look a little worried, however, and she rushed to give him a little more explanation. "If you miss one, you're supposed to double up the following day, and I did that. And I didn't miss yesterday's either, but… We really should've used a condom this morning, and I just didn't think about it…"

She was rambling, and Booth couldn't help the affectionate smile that crossed his face. He placed his index finger to her lips and waited until she was making eye contact before he spoke.

"Bones, it's okay. It's not your fault you missed a pill. Are you…" he grappled with his words for a moment, "upset at the idea of having a baby?" He held his breath while she seemed to consider it.

 _Was she?_ Brennan had more or less accepted that her ideas about parenthood had changed when she fell in love with Booth. She did want a child with him… someday. But right now? She was honestly more concerned about _his_ reaction. She knew that Parker had been a product of failed birth control, and she wasn't sure how he would feel about that happening again.

"No," she answered hesitantly. "I just… I don't know that it's the right time. And I didn't know if you would be upset about it possibly happening this way. Because of Parker…"

Booth released the breath he'd been holding with a long sigh of relief.

"Bones, I meant what I said the last time we talked about this. I will be happy with you either way. Whether it's just you, me, and Parker, or whether we add a child of our own… No matter how it happens, I'll be happy. I swear. The idea of having a baby with you could never make me upset."

Brennan closed her eyes for a brief moment, relieved at his words. She nodded to show that she understood

"Can I ask though… What kind of odds are we talking about?" he asked calmly.

"Fairly low, I think. But still higher than it would be if I hadn't missed a dose."

"Okay, so we just play it by ear and see what happens, huh?"

"Play what?" she asked, her brow furrowing slightly.

"It's an expression; I just meant that we'll handle whatever happens once we know more."

"Oh. Yes, I agree." She smiled cautiously, feeling a little more at ease, and when he pulled her into his arms, she felt even better.

"Let's not think about it for now, okay? Let's just go get some lunch, maybe go for a walk on the Mall, or maybe just come back here and relax…"

"A walk sounds nice," she agreed. "Is there anything you need to catch up on at work though? You took two days off unexpectedly," she pointed out.

"Nothing that can't keep till Monday. I checked in with a few people yesterday, and I didn't miss much. This weekend is ours, okay?"

She nodded happily and lifted her mouth to his, feeling the last of her anxiety ebb away. He was right. They would handle whatever happened, when it happened.

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They were awakened in the early hours of Monday morning by a phone call alerting them to a possible crime scene. A body had been found in a shallow grave, badly decomposed and with possible signs of foul play. Brennan didn't see much point in showering right before going to a crime scene, so she packed an extra change of clothes in her bag.

"You expecting this to be a nasty one?" Booth asked, eyeing her spare clothing in confusion.

"I have no way of knowing what it will be, Booth. But it doesn't make much sense to shower beforehand, so I'm bringing some extra clothes and showering at work."

"Ah. That infamous decontamination shower I've heard of before, huh?"

"Correct," she answered distractedly, packing her laptop into the bag as well.

"How is it that I've never seen it? I'm at the lab all the time."

"It's in Zack's office. I'm guessing you don't spend too much time in there."

Booth paused in the act of straightening his tie, his eyes widening.

"You take showers in Zack's office?"

"Sure. We all have at one point or another. There's another shower in a vacant exam room, but since the room is unused, the shower isn't a priority for the cleaning crew, so hardly anyone uses it unless it's a true emergency." She caught sight of his expression then and rolled her eyes, easily guessing the direction of his thoughts. "Relax Booth, he gives people their privacy. No one's ever seen anything."

He felt only slightly reassured by her statement, but he opted to let it go. They had a crime scene to investigate.

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Their case progressed fairly quickly, once they established a logical timeline for decomposition. What was at first thought to be signs of mutilation in fact turned out to be merely accelerated decomp. Their suspect, the victim's wife, claimed to have buried the man herself after he had died of natural causes. She couldn't afford a proper burial or even a cremation, and the victim didn't have life insurance.

Angela worked up a simulation to show the decomposition in reverse, ending with an original image of the man's face. The team was satisfied that this wasn't a murder, but Cullen was insisting on seeing the simulation before he would allow Booth to close the case.

While Brennan had been squinting over the body on Monday morning, Booth had overheard some gossip among the FBI techs at the scene. Cullen wouldn't be spending much time in the office for quite a while, and they speculated as to whether he might simply retire early. His fifteen-year-old daughter, Amy, was battling mesothelioma. She'd been diagnosed about a month ago, apparently, and Cullen seemed to have done his best to keep his personal life out of the workplace. But people talked, and the story had made its way around the Hoover. Her prognosis wasn't good.

Booth had met the girl a handful of times at FBI family events. Typically, he didn't care to attend things like that, but he'd taken Parker to a few company picnics over the years. She'd been a sweet kid, and Booth felt a surge of empathy for his boss. Cullen was still working, but he'd asked Booth to find a way to show him Angela's simulation at the hospital.

Booth was nervous. It was a precarious situation, socially speaking, and this required him to bring his rather socially awkward partner along to explain her team's findings. As much as he loved her and knew she didn't mean any harm, Brennan could be very tactless at times. Cullen knew that well enough by now, but his wife and daughter didn't, and the last thing Booth wanted was to make the situation harder for them.

"Why are we meeting Cullen here?" Brennan asked. They were making their way down the hallway of the pediatric oncology floor at GW with Angela. They'd been so busy with the case that he hadn't gotten the opportunity to tell her what he'd overheard. They had pretty much fallen straight into bed after late dinners each night. If they were going to claim that the case wasn't a homicide, they'd wanted to be absolutely certain.

"About a month ago, his daughter Amy was diagnosed with cancer. Meso…"

"Mesothelioma. Lung cancer," Brennan supplied.

"Exactly. So she's not doing so well… so it's a lot easier for us to come to him right now."

Angela shifted her laptop bag awkwardly on her shoulder, and Brennan looked troubled.

"Huh," she said idly.

"'Huh' what, Bones?"

"Nothing. It's just that that's an extremely rare form of lung cancer. Odd for someone Amy's age to contract."

Booth stopped walking and held out a hand to stop her as well. This is what he'd been afraid of.

"No, Bones. No probing, okay? Not to Cullen, not to his family." He lowered his voice then and said, "This will take five minutes. We go in, do the show and tell relating to the case, and then we're out of there. Okay?"

Brennan heard the plea in his voice but couldn't leave it there.

"I think it's peculiar."

"No."

"But I-"

" _No."_

"You have to admit-"

"Booth!" Cullen's voice interrupted them. He was standing in the doorway of his daughter's room, looking slightly amused. "Dr. Brennan. How appropriate, you two bickering in an _adolescent_ wing."

"Uh, sir, yes." Booth flushed apologetically. "Is it okay if we come in, sir?"

"What do you think, sweetheart?" Cullen directed the question over his shoulder where a young girl with curly brown hair sat in a hospital bed. Her mother was at her side.

"Booth's cool. Most of the time," she answered.

"You heard the lady. You're cool."

Booth smiled as they entered the room, and Brennan rolled her eyes at his cocky expression. Angela waved hello and began to set up her laptop near the small sofa in the room so that Cullen could watch the simulation.

"Are you sure it's alright for me to do this now?" she asked hesitantly.

"Nothing I haven't seen before," Amy commented, not looking up from her large sketch pad.

"Let's see what you've got there, Angela," Cullen encouraged her. While her friend loaded the program, Brennan spoke up to explain their findings.

"Note the estimated time of death is mid-June. Extreme humidity combined with insects and precipitation accelerated the rate of decomp."

"So based on this, the victim's body was _not_ mutilated?" Cullen asked as the image transformed on the screen. The skeletal remains morphed slowly into a dead man's face.

"The effects were completely environmental," Brennan confirmed.

"Murder doesn't fit the suspect's profile, sir."

"I'd like to see this again," he said, gesturing to the laptop.

"Knock yourself out, sir. Eighty-six times is our limit," Brennan said, rising from the small couch. Angela moved away with her and struck up a conversation with Amy about her artwork. All five adults in the room listened sadly as Amy explained that visiting the Louvre was on her bucket list: right after 'fall in love' and 'learn to drive.'

"She's amazing," Brennan said honestly, looking at the landscape Amy had been working on when they entered. Cullen's wife agreed and went on to say that her daughter had toughed it out through a round of experimental viral chemotherapy.

"Since asbestos exposure is the primary way people contract mesothelioma… how do you think Amy got it?" Brennan asked, ignoring Booth's less-than-subtle throat clearing behind her.

"Oh, we don't know, Dr. Brennan," Cullen spoke up from behind her. "The first place we looked after she was diagnosed was all her previous schools, the house we lived in… nothing."

"Has there been a history of illness?"

"Hardly," Mrs. Cullen answered. "Apart from breaking her leg snowboarding a year ago, I can't remember the last time she was sick."

"How bad was the break?"

"Compound fracture, left tibia," Cullen replied.

"I was boarding with some friends and… hit a tree. Pretty dumb, huh?" Amy asked, smiling ruefully.

"And that required surgery?" Brennan pressed.

"A bone graft," Amy's mother confirmed.

Booth had now cleared his throat so many times he sounded like he was coming down with strep, and he felt the need to get Brennan out of the room so she would stop prying. He attempted to make an excuse and guide her out of the room, but she was having none of it.

"Could I see Amy's graft x-ray?"

"Sir, I apologize…" But Cullen ignored him and quickly located the x-ray in question.

"Of course. If you think they'll tell us anything…" Cullen handed her the film and watched Brennan hold it up toward the light. Booth held his breath and experienced a sense of foreboding as he watched her expression.

He knew that face.

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When Brennan had asked to take Amy's x-rays with her to the lab, the Cullens agreed immediately. Booth knew that she'd seen something even at the first glance, and he was thankful that she didn't voice any of her theories before they left.

Once they were back at the lab, Booth watched quietly as she, Zack, and Hodgins analyzed the images. Even Hodgins, who by his own admission was 'not the bone expert, noticed that something was amiss with Amy Cullen's bone graft. Brennan thought that the donor had to have been at least sixty, rather than twenty-five, as the Cullens had been led to believe.

Brennan spotted Booth waiting for a verdict and gestured toward him to follow her off the platform. Once she'd closed her office door behind him, she turned to face him.

"Booth…" She hesitated a moment but squared her shoulders and continued, "Do I embarrass you?"

It hadn't been what he'd expected her to say at all, and he faltered a bit.

"Of course not. Why are you asking me that?"

"At the hospital, you kept trying to interrupt me. Multiple times. And you apologized, seemingly on my behalf. The most logical reason for your words and actions are that you're embarrassed by me." Her voice trembled only slightly. Otherwise, she was her usual cool, clinical self. But Booth was undeceived by her bravado. Her arms were wrapped around her ribcage defensively, and she chewed her bottom lip subtly.

"No, Bones. I didn't mean it that way." He ran a hand across the back of his neck as he searched for the right words. The truth was that he was sometimes embarrassed _for_ her. He tried to guide her and help her understand as much as he could, but it simply wasn't always possible. However, the last thing he wanted her thinking was that he was somehow ashamed of her.

"Then how _did_ you mean it?" she pressed. He moved closer to her and took her hands in his.

"Cullen and his family are going through something really terrible right now. His daughter is dying, and situations like that… they're tricky."

"You mean the social customs relating to the circumstances."

"Yes. It's a sensitive situation, the kind that makes it impolite to pry into people's private business. Does that make sense?"

"Yes… but I didn't mean to overstep some sort of boundary. Her case is unique, and an anomaly like that deserves extra scrutiny. I would've been remiss if I hadn't at least offered to look."

"I know, Bones. I'm sorry if I made you feel like I was embarrassed by you. I promise that I wasn't."

She nodded, accepting his explanation, and he pulled her into a tight embrace.

"I'm _proud_ of you, Bones. Don't ever doubt that." Booth tilted her chin upward and brushed his lips against hers almost reverently. Brennan felt a pleasant warmth move through her. She returned the kiss for a few moments, then sighed, belatedly recalling that her office blinds were open. A quick glance through the window proved her suspicions correct; Angela was watching them with a rather dreamy smile.

Brennan rolled her eyes a little and put some distance between herself and her boyfriend before she became tempted to really give her coworkers a show. Kissing Booth was almost like a drug for her sometimes. It was hard to stop at just one fix.

"So… what did you find?" he asked anxiously.

"Someone lied to them, Booth."

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They started with the surgeon who had done Amy's bone graft, tracking him down outside of an operating room at GW. Within seconds, Booth was irritated with the guy.

"I just do the procedure, Ms. Brennan."

" _Doctor_ Brennan," Booth corrected.

"MD?"

"PhD," Brennan answered.

"Well those who can't do, do research."

"Okay," Booth sputtered, starting to get in the guy's face a little. Brennan deserved respect, and he really hated when someone refused to give her the credit she was due.

"Booth." She put a hand on his arm to stop him, rolling her eyes a little at his alpha-male posturing.

"Okay, fine. If you're just the mechanic, then who's responsible for all the parts you install?" Booth asked, irritated.

"You'll have to check with the hospital's transplant coordinator. Why? What's going on?"

"There are indications that the bone graft you implanted in Amy Cullen gave her cancer," Brennan said coolly.

"No, that's not possible. Every graft we get has been tested and irradiated."

"There's one way to know for sure. Assuming significant remodeling hasn't occurred, do a transiliac crest core biopsy on the donor bone. Then we'll have age and pathology."

"And who's going to perform that biopsy, _Doctor?_ "

"You are," Brennan answered succinctly.

They let the surgeon get to his scheduled procedure and went to speak to Cullen and his wife. It was a difficult conversation, and Booth's mood didn't improve as the day progressed. They stood outside the window to Amy's room and watched the biopsy procedure. Booth was wincing.

"It looks like it hurts."

"They use a local anesthetic and make a small incision before inserting the needle into the bone," she explained. Booth didn't really want the play-by-play, but he knew she liked to explain things. "A tiny core of bone is taken, a little more than a sixth of an inch in diameter, using a ratchet-like device in the needle."

"So it hurts?" he asked, cringing again.

"Amy's a tough kid. She's doing great."

"It's not Amy I'm worried about." Brennan watched him as he watched Cullen, who was holding his daughter's hand. Booth couldn't stop thinking about what this must be doing to him. He tried to imagine, only for a moment, that something like this could happen to his son or to the child he might someday have with Brennan. But a moment was all he could tolerate. No parent should have to bury their child.

Brennan reached for Booth's hand and squeezed it gently. He looked at her then and gave her a sad smile.

"Come on," he said, putting an arm around her waist. "Let's go talk to the coordinator about the graft."

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The transplant coordinator was a man named Dr. Ogden, and he seemed cooperative enough, at least up to the point that Booth implied Amy's cancer could be the fault of his office. His assistant, Alexandra gave them Amy's file, but neither of them were able to disclose the name of the donor. Ogden advised them to contact the tissue bank, BioTech Tissue Services.

Once Amy's bone graft was released to them, Brennan got her squints to work on the analysis. Booth had joined them on the platform and was listening closely, proud that for once he understood nearly all of what they were saying.

"So, based on this one sample, it's clear that the donor bone came from someone in their sixties," Brennan explained.

"But how do we know that it's the bone that gave Amy cancer?" he asked.

"Because of this." She instructed Zack to magnify the image. "The graft is riddled with cancer," Brennan told him, indicating the cancerous cells on the screen.

"Cancer consistent with morphology in the pleura, most likely mesothelioma," Zack added.

"Whoever this was had terminal cancer. And now so does Amy," Brennan said bleakly. "Someone knew that bone was infected, and they gave it to her anyway."

"This will kill Amy Cullen," said Zack.

"Well, in that case… it's murder."

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Booth and Brennan met with Cullen in Booth's office late that afternoon. Brennan explained the situation patiently, but when Cullen asked if the information changed his daughter's prognosis in any way, she was forced to be honest. Cullen instructed Booth to call the CDC so that they could continue the investigation, stating that the FBI was not his personal police force.

Brennan began to argue that her team could still continue to investigate, but Booth interrupted her to assure Cullen that he would call the CDC. After Cullen had left, she turned to him in confusion.

"Are we really just going to let this go?"

"Of course not. But my boss just told me to stop our investigation, so for now it's off the books, at least until we get something that warrants opening a federal case."

"So what will you do?" she asked, still not completely following him.

"Take a couple sick days, keep working on it."

"You're not sick," she pointed out. Booth sighed and failed to prevent his eyes from rolling a little.

"I know, Bones, but it's like you said. We can't just let it go. So if I have to take some time off to work on it under the radar, then that's what I'll do."

She gazed at him for a few moments and then gave him a soft smile. _He's such a good man_ , Brennan thought. She closed the distance between them and slipped her arms around his waist, tilting her face upward to look at him.

"You know… I'm proud of you too."

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The address that Ogden's assistant had given them for BioTech turned out to be an empty office space. The office building manager told them that the company had gone under two years ago, which made it extremely suspicious since Amy Cullen's graft was sold to the hospital only twelve months ago.

They returned to Ogden's office only to find it mostly empty as well. His assistant, Alexandra, informed them that the man was overseeing the transport of a liver to Baltimore and wouldn't return until the following morning. She insisted that it simply wasn't possible that BioTech didn't exist.

Brennan urged the woman to help them find out who else might have gotten a graft from Amy's donor, and the woman hesitantly gave them the name Kelly DeMarco. She'd been in a car accident and had two bone grafts placed on the same day as Amy's leg surgery.

Booth was immediately on his phone with Charlie asking him to hunt down an address and telephone number for the woman, but within a few short seconds, his face looked even angrier about the situation. He thanked Charlie and hung up before speaking to the two women again.

"Kelly DeMarco… she's dead."

"Oh my God," Alexandra said, looking stunned.

"We need to know for sure if she had the same kind of cancer. We have to exhume her."

Booth nodded solemnly, and they said a quick goodbye to Ogden's assistant.

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As they made their way through the parking structure to the SUV, Booth's gut twinged a little, and the skin on his arms and neck seemed to tingle. He recognized the feeling instantly; they were being watched. He moved closer to Brennan and put an arm around her waist, hurrying her along and scanning the vehicles around them. She made a noise of protest at being rushed, but one glance at his expression told her something was wrong. She allowed him to walk her straight to the passenger door and close it once she was inside, not saying a word until he had slipped quickly into the driver's seat and revved the engine.

"Booth…"

"Look around for me, Bones. Especially as we leave the garage. Do you see anyone sitting in or around any of the cars?" She was surprised and confused by his instruction, but she did as she was told. Booth drove slowly out of the structure and into the sunlight, the tension easing only slightly once they were moving steadily into the flow of traffic on 23rd.

"I didn't see anyone, Booth. Did you? What's going on?"

"I don't know, I just… got that feeling, you know?"

"A _feeling?_ " She tried to keep the skepticism out of her voice, but judging by the look he threw at her, she was unsuccessful. Brennan worked to keep her tone neutral. "What kind of feeling?"

"That someone was watching us. You know, in the kind of way that makes me nervous."

He didn't have to say aloud who he thought it might be. Her mind had gone to the same place. _Peter_. But Brennan wasn't prepared to go on Booth's gut and nothing else. There was no real evidence that there had been anyone or anything to be concerned over.

"Booth, I'm sure everything's fine. Let's just focus on the case, alright?"

He nodded, appreciating that she was trying to soothe him but not quite able to put it out of his mind. His eyes darted from the road, to the rearview mirror, to the side mirrors, and back again. No one seemed to be following them, but he took a slightly scenic route to the lab anyway. When they finally pulled to a stop in his usual parking space, he told her to stay in the car until he came around.

Normally, Brennan would've argued, but she knew that Booth was stressed about more than a possible tail at the moment and chose to simply give him what he needed. Booth's gaze swept the area thoroughly before he opened her door. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but he wasn't done being cautious. He put an arm around her to lead her to the building entrance, and only relaxed once they were safely past the first security checkpoint.

She decided not to address it again for now, and they spent a half hour or so making calls to set up Kelly DeMarco's exhumation before heading back to his place. They had been intending to stay at her apartment, but since Peter had never tracked them to his place as far as they knew, it made more sense to spend the night there.

Brennan wasn't sure what to think about his suspicions. While she had come to respect his 'gut instincts' as much as he had come to respect her 'squinty-ness,' Brennan didn't want to think about the possibility of Peter causing more problems. As she watched the way he guarded her, literally up to the point that he'd locked his front door behind them, she realized with surprise that she couldn't seem to summon any real concern over a possible threat. She was more worried that _he_ was worried. The last thing he needed at the moment was more stress, and if Booth had been right about being watched by Peter or anyone else, she knew that a resolution wouldn't come easily.

But she trusted him. And she wasn't afraid.

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Max watched them from a short distance away in the Jeffersonian parking structure, feeling slightly confused at the agent's suddenly overcautious behavior. He observed the protective way the younger man moved, keeping a hand on Brennan at all times as they walked from their vehicle to the doors, sweeping his eyes across the rows of vehicles so many times that Max had worried for just a moment that he might be spotted.

 _Something happened_ , he concluded. Something had spooked his daughter's partner, and Max had been watching them long enough to know that the kid had good instincts. He was honestly a little surprised that Booth hadn't realized he was hanging around. Max supposed it was further proof that he'd become rather skilled at keeping to the shadows.

He didn't follow them home when they emerged a short while later. Instead, he stayed put to see if any vehicles pulled out unexpectedly once they'd gone. All was still and silent however, and Max decided to check Brennan's apartment building. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary there either. The couple had apparently decided to stay at his place that evening, so the SUV was missing from its usual place next to Brennan's car, but Max decided sit for a while anyway.

Roughly twenty minutes later, a non-descript vehicle backed into a visitor's space a fair distance away from the elevator. The man in the driver's seat began doing his own observations once he'd killed the engine, and when the headlights from another car swept across his face, Max recognized him.

 _Peter St. James._

Max was a little surprised that the guy would be stupid enough to risk being caught harassing his daughter again, especially considering he'd just been released on parole last week. Peter only stayed for fifteen minutes or so before pulling out of the space and leaving the garage entirely, but Max had scrutinized his movements with growing discomfort.

He'd recognized the man's behavior for what it was; he was casing out the place.

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Booth slept fitfully that evening, his troubled mutterings alternating between Brennan's name and Parker's. Brennan tried to wake him more than once, but he seemed thoroughly trapped in his nightmares. Eventually, she moved herself upward slightly and wrapped her arms around him tightly, pressing his cheek to her heart. She hoped that the sound would calm him subconsciously, and perhaps it did. His arms snaked around her waist almost immediately, and he sighed as her hands stroked his smooth skin gently, from his forehead to his bare shoulders. When he finally quieted, she didn't even bother trying to extricate herself into a more comfortable position. He was squeezing her too tightly. So she dozed off again, only to be woken a few short hours later by his alarm.

Even after he awoke, Booth didn't stop seeking comfort from her. He kissed her slowly, taking care to run his hands over every inch of bare skin that he could reach without moving his lips from hers. It was as though he needed tactile confirmation that she was truly there, safe.

He continued to hold her close as they shared a shower, but he didn't attempt to do more than embrace her beneath the warm stream of water.

"You should call Parker today," she suggested quietly. He nodded but looked slightly confused. "You were calling for him in your sleep last night," she explained.

"Sorry." Booth frowned a little, remembering his nightmares. He'd dreamt that it had been Parker, not Amy Cullen, lying in that hospital bed. And that he, rather than his boss, had been faced with the imminent loss of his child. Brennan didn't seem to need an apology or an explanation for his sleep talking, and he loved her even more for it.

"Maybe I could talk to him too?" Brennan asked as she soaped the broad expanse of his shoulders. He turned and gave her a real smile then.

"I'm sure he'd like that. We'll call when he's out of school later, okay?" She nodded, returning his smile hesitantly.

"This case has made me think about him too. And…" _And the baby that she wasn't sure even existed yet._ She wasn't sure if she could say the words out loud, but he didn't need her to.

"I know, Bones." He hugged her to him and kissed her tenderly before reaching around her to turn off the shower. He helped her out and handed her a towel. "Let's figure out who did this to Amy. If nothing else, maybe it will give Cullen and his wife a little peace."

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Kelly DeMarco's exhumed body had arrived at the lab by that afternoon, and the squints got to work quickly on a biopsy of the grafted ulna. Booth had spent the majority of the day making phone calls from Brennan's office. He'd spoken to Kelly's husband about her car accident and her fight with cancer, and he'd also managed to round up a few agents who were willing to do some work on the case without pay. Cullen had loyal employees.

"Look, I've got three agents out there right now, searching for BioTech," he told the team when they had gathered on the platform. "But all we have to work on is this email address assigned to a fictitious name. So let's just… let's just say that Ogden and this fake tissue lab are in cahoots. How many other bones out there can be from the same donor?"

Brennan's eyes narrowed at the word 'cahoots,' but Zack spoke before she could ask what it meant.

"There are two hundred and six bones in the human body. Of those, any number of them are graftable."

"Okay, so you're saying that there could be _hundreds_ of people out there with cancer time bombs in them, and they don't even realize it?"

"We need to call every hospital in the DC area. If they acquired BioTech grafts at the same time as Amy, those recipients need to be tracked down and tested immediately," Brennan told him anxiously.

"Fine, but if you're right, then the Bureau can officially designate this a serial killing."

He and Brennan exchanged a troubled glance, and Zack demanded his attention again. He'd been able to find information on Ogden's past. The man had been fired from a private hospital in Denver.

"Reason?" Brennan asked.

"Accepting a bribe for bumping someone up in the donor lists. This guy's dirty. Come on, let's go talk to him."

She pulled off her gloves and followed him, noticing as they walked to his car that he was still being extremely observant of their surroundings.

"Is Parker out of school yet?" she asked, hoping to get his mind off his worries for a few minutes. Booth glanced at the dashboard clock and smiled.

"Yeah, he should be, but his nanny takes him to the park sometimes after preschool." Brennan looked a little disappointed. "We can try though."

Her face brightened, and he handed her the cell phone from his pocket, instructing her to find 'Rose' in the contact list. She did so and switched on the speakerphone..

Rose answered promptly and assured Booth that his call wasn't interrupting anything before passing the phone to Parker. At four years old, his son was still learning phone etiquette. Sometimes Parker refused to speak more than a handful of words, and sometimes he was so talkative that Booth was the one who wasn't able to speak more than a few words. Luckily, Parker was just as loquacious over the phone today as he usually was in person.

Booth suspected that Brennan was the most likely reason for the endless stream of chatter. The two of them quickly took over the conversation, and Booth listened attentively with a broad smile stretched across his face. By the time Parker had finally run out of things to talk about, they'd been parked outside the hospital for ten minutes. They said their goodbyes and ended the call, both feeling a significant lift in their moods.

Brennan noted that Booth had opted for street rather than garage parking, but she didn't comment, not wanting to diminish the easy smile he was now wearing. He no longer looked sickened by what was happening to his boss's family, and it wasn't until she caught sight of her reflection in the glass doors that she realized her expression mirrored his.

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"I'm not saying I'm proud of what I did, Dr. Brennan, but just because I took the bribe doesn't mean I had anything to do with this." Ogden was flustered and red-faced.

"Why don't you tell us about your relationship with BioTech?" Brennan suggested.

"The same I have with every other company I deal with… a virtual one."

"Emails, online financial transactions," Booth supplied. Ogden nodded.

"My assistant sends out a country-wide search for an organ or bone that we're looking for. They respond back, and we bid. If we can reach an agreement, the part is immediately transported for surgery."

"And in Amy Cullen's case?"

"Same protocol. I bid, I bought, I received. No conversations were had. We're not required to check out suppliers each and every time we take an order."

Booth was fuming again and promised Ogden that he would scour his bank transactions to look for suspicious activity. Ogden denied any involvement in the current mess, but it was clear to Brennan that Booth thought he was the prime suspect. She could practically feel the anger emanating from his body, and she slipped her hand into his as they returned to the SUV. He seemed to relax somewhat, but he remained silent until they got to the Jeffersonian. She stopped him with a hand to his arm before he opened his door to leave the car.

"Booth." Her voice was low and quiet, and it soothed him. He brought her hand to his lips and sighed.

"I'm okay, Bones. I just really hate that so many lives could have been destroyed by one person. A person who most likely acted out of greed. It's a senseless waste."

"I agree. Maybe we can't heal the people who've been hurt, but we can make sure the person responsible pays for what they've done."

He nodded a little vaguely but then gave her a tender smile, and she leaned over the console to brush his lips with her own. Booth put a hand against the side of her face to keep her from pulling back, and the kiss lasted quite a bit longer than Brennan had originally intended. They both gave and took comfort in one another, and by the time he finally released her lips, they were both breathless.

"Thanks, baby." Brennan pursed her lips at the ease with which the moniker slipped off his tongue, but she let it go once again. She supposed that she would tolerate it, so long as he only said it in private.

"Don't mention it. Now let's get back to work."

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Within an hour of their return to the lab, they had tracked down the names of eleven more people who had received grafts from Amy's donor. Booth was impressed with the team's work. Typically, he and some other agents handled the information-gathering part of the case while the squints stuck to their science. He was pleased to see that their skills were broader than he'd given them credit for. They had names and address on all thirteen, including Amy Cullen and Kelly DeMarco.

"I've already contacted GW to set up a biopsy testing facility," Brennan announced. Booth took a deep breath and shook his head at the pictures on the screen.

"Man… How does one dead guy do so much damage?" His question was rhetorical, but it triggered a light bulb in Brennan's mind.

"That's a good idea."

"What idea?"

"Identify the donor, and we might be able to find out how BioTech got his bones," she explained. Booth was impressed but not entirely sure why she was giving him credit for the idea.

"Second decedent's name is Ronald Lupo," Hodgins said, ending the phone call he'd been on. "Found him at a cemetery in Lynchburg."

"Virginia?" Booth asked hopefully.

"Yeah, why?"

"Cause it means that this fraud just crossed state lines and became a legitimate case for the FBI." He looked at Brennan with quite a bit more optimism than he'd had for the last hour. "Looks like I don't have to use my sick days anymore, huh?"

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"How many?" Cullen asked. Booth had wasted no time in notifying his boss of what they'd uncovered.

"Sick or dead?"

"Dead."

"Two… that we know of. But that makes it a multiple homicide case. And since it's not isolated to the district, and the recipients are in multiple states…"

"This falls under FBI jurisdiction."

"Yes, sir," Booth said evenly. Cullen regarded him with an unreadable expression for a moment.

"I should kick your ass."

"Yeah."

"What'd you do? Take sick time to work on this?"

"Yeah. Migraine," he explained with an indulgent smile. Cullen nodded and felt his throat constrict.

"Thanks, Booth. Catch the son of a bitch who did this to my daughter."

"That's absolutely my intention, sir."

Cullen dismissed Booth and watched him make his way back down the hallway. The magnitude of the situation shocked him. _Thirteen people?_ Booth might never truly understand what his actions meant to his boss, but Cullen would never forget it. It was gratifying to know that his employees cared enough about his family to go out of their way to help them, and Cullen hoped that perhaps someday he might have an opportunity to repay them.

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Booth and Brennan stood together to watch the too-long progression of patients being tested for cancer. They were of both genders, all races, and ranging in age from a man in his seventies to a young girl who looked to be around six. Brennan observed the testing with a clinical eye, but with a heart that was anything but compartmentalized. Eventually she had to turn away, and Booth followed her, looking grim.

They were both surprised to see Amy Cullen standing a short distance behind them, watching the procedures as well. Brennan motioned for Booth to give her a moment with the girl, and he moved to stand about a dozen feet away to wait for her.

"Hey, you alright?" Brennan asked tentatively.

"Did all these people get bones from the same donor I did?"

"Yes."

"Do they all have cancer?"

"No, not all of them. But the sooner the ones who are infected know, the better," Brennan explained gently. She watched as tears began to well in the young girl's eyes, and Brennan felt her chest ache with emotion.

"Who would do a thing like that? If they knew they were sick, why make other people sick too?"

"I don't know. It's terrible… but that's what we're trying to figure out."

"So, if you take the bad grafts out, will they be okay?" Amy asked hopefully.

"Some of them."

"But not me." It was a statement rather than a question.

"No," Brennan answered. Tears formed in her own eyes as well, and she worked to keep them from streaming down her cheeks.

"I want this out of me," Amy said forcefully.

"Sweetheart, you're not strong enough." Booth could hear their conversation and looked toward his partner. He wasn't sure he'd ever heard her use a term of endearment that way. Hearing it now seemed to slice painfully through his heart, and the sensation intensified when Amy began to plead with her.

"Get them to take it out."

"Amy, you have to understand… All of these people…"

"I don't care," she cried.

"You're saving their lives."

Amy dissolved further into tears and walked away, and Brennan was left struggling to contain a sob. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply, but the unexpected feel of Booth's arms around her was her undoing. She cried into his chest, and he swayed a little, rocking her gently. It took several minutes to calm her, and when she was reasonably more composed, she allowed him to take her back to the lab.

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Brennan and her squints worked late into the night, and nothing Booth said could convince her to come home with him and get a few hours' sleep. They were all working to determine the donor's identity, and no one seemed interested in calling it a night. Around midnight, he gave up and stretched out on the couch in her office.

Booth awoke at about six the next morning, pleasantly surprised to find Brennan lying with him on the couch. Her head was resting against his chest, and she was clutching a fistful of his shirt as though to keep him as close as possible. The idea made Booth chuckle a little, considering she was sleeping half on top of him and had a leg wrapped around his as well.

The lab was quiet, and he closed his eyes again to enjoy the weight of her against his body. He moved a hand slowly through her soft hair, listening to her breathe, and he knew the exact moment that she began to wake. Booth opened his eyes to look at her, admiring the warm flush in her cheeks that always seemed to bloom while she slept. He'd spent a fair number of hours watching her sleep since they'd gotten together, and though she'd admonished him multiple times, he simply couldn't help himself. It was impossible to hold her in his arms and _not_ look at her.

Brennan yawned sleepily and blinked to focus her eyes. She hadn't slept all that long, but the comforting sound of Booth's heartbeat had at least ensured that her sleep was restful. She looked up to meet his eyes and pursed her lips in false annoyance.

"You were watching me sleep again, weren't you?"

"Yup." Booth grinned, unabashed.

"That's really creepy, you know."

"Can't help it. You're adorably beautiful when you sleep."

Brennan chuckled and closed her eyes to breathe him in just once more before rolling off of him. She didn't really dislike that he watched her sleep; she just liked to tease him about it. He watched her stretch her back in a way that reminded him of a lazy, slender cat and wished that he'd been able to convince her to go home the night before. Booth longed to feel her exquisite skin against his, but this wasn't the time to be fooling around in her office. They had work to do.

He followed her to Angela's office to find the artist crashed on her own couch, and Brennan attempted to wake her gently. When Angela stirred only slightly and emitted a sound that was not unlike a growl, Brennan looked at him imploringly.

"Can you get some coffee?"

"Sure," he laughed tiredly. Coffee sounded _good_. Once Angela was up and moving, she showed them the end product of her efforts to determine what the donor had looked like. Hodgins stumbled into the room a few minutes later and announced his own findings as well. They were looking for a man from West Virginia who matched the specifications they had postulated for the donor. Their search had narrowed it to three possible matches, so Zack and Hodgins were going to spend the morning tracking down two of them while Booth and Brennan headed to West Virginia.

They stopped at her apartment only briefly to take a quick shower and change before they were on their way. Booth had once more experienced a sensation of being watched by someone he couldn't see, but he did his best to focus on other things once they were on the road. They spent the drive flirting shamelessly, bickering over radio stations, and making plans for their next weekend with Parker. A couple of hours after they'd left DC, Hodgins and Zack called to help narrow down the list of men fitting the donor's description. His name was William Hastings, and he'd lived in a tiny valley town called Beard's Fork in West Virginia.

Booth was feeling more optimistic with the news, and he reached over to squeeze Brennan's hand supportively. They were closer to finding the truth.

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 **I have mixed feelings about this episode and the next, but I know a lot of people like them, so I didn't do another time jump.**

 **Note of interest: I actually looked up the town of Beard's Fork, WV, and it's little more than a road with some houses in a valley. Also, it's like 3-4 hours from DC. But you know, in HH's world, time is irrelevant, right? :) See you Tuesday!**


	24. Chapter 24

**Welcome back! In this one, we're wrapping up one case and beginning another. Neither of these episodes were my one of my favorites, but I really couldn't pass up the growth opportunity. Ep 21 was a particularly angsty one for Booth, so that does come up here. Generally speaking, I prefer angst without relationship problems, but it is what it is.**

 **A few people have asked me - Yes, there WILL be a sequel. _Two_ of them, actually. More info on my profile page.**

 **Thank you again for all of the wonderful reviews, favorites, and follows. They make my day. Hope you enjoy!**

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Chapter 24

The interview with William Hastings' wife didn't go as well as Booth had hoped. The woman had an interesting way about her. She wasn't necessarily uncooperative in her demeanor, but she was a bit abrasive. She had refused to allow Brennan to obtain a sample of the soil where her husband's ashes had been scattered, and she followed the refusal with a snarky suggestion that they 'bring some dogs and trigger-happy agents' when they returned with a warrant.

The only lead she'd given them was the name of the funeral home that had handled her husband's cremation, and the place was easy enough to locate in yet another valley town to the west of Hastings' home. Unfortunately, their brief talk with the director had ended on an awkward note, and the man claimed never even to have heard of William Hastings.

They headed back to DC feeling slightly dejected, but Booth assured Brennan that they would come back with a warrant, hopefully as soon as the following day. He called Cullen on the drive back to apprise him of the situation, and his boss agreed to pursue warrants for both the soil sample and a thorough investigation of the funeral home.

Satisfied that they'd done as much as they could do up to that point, Booth placed another call to Peter's parole officer. Brennan listened passively, unaware of whom he was speaking with at first.

"Hey Jim, it's Agent Booth. Just checking in on our friend."

Brennan's interested piqued slightly, and she arched a brow at him curiously. Booth listened to the parole officer, Jim Hayes, give a report on Peter's known activities. Peter had been checking in on schedule and had shown up for both of the anger management classes he'd had scheduled so far.

"So nothing suspicious then. You're sure?" He liked Hayes, but he knew well enough that the guy had a full caseload. It wasn't like he could physically track the movements of his parolees. Hayes denied evidence of anything suspicious, and Booth thanked him for the information before hanging up.

"What was that about?" Brennan asked him.

"Just checking in with Peter's parole officer. Someone's got an eye on us, at least some of the time. I know it."

"And the parole officer said there was nothing suspicious in his behavior?"

"Yeah. Says he's been reporting in on schedule and going to his anger management classes. But Bones, that doesn't mean it's not him watching us. Hayes has a big caseload; he can't keep track of everyone all the time. And Peter isn't someone who deserves the benefit of the doubt."

"I agree, but we have no proof that he or anyone else is observing us."

"Someone is, Bones. I don't know who yet, but I'll figure it out. I can't get security tapes from a residential building without a warrant, but maybe someone on the security staff at your place will be willing to have a look for us."

"But you thought someone was watching in the hospital parking garage," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but if someone's following us in the field, I'm sure they've been around our homes at least once. I felt it when we were at your place this morning too." _And if it's Peter, I'll have his ass back in jail before he can blink,_ Booth thought.

"I suppose that logic is reasonable, but…Booth, what would you even tell them to look for?"

"Any cars that shouldn't be there, vehicles that park but no one gets out, things like that."

Brennan remained silent for a moment, considering his words. She didn't like the idea of someone stalking either of them, but her reasonable, logic-loving mind simply couldn't get on board with spending time and resources on something that wasn't supported by evidence. A gut feeling wasn't quite enough.

"I understand that you're nervous because of your 'feeling,' Booth, but…are you sure it's really serious enough to go through hours of security footage, or ask someone else to do so?"

Booth's expression hardened slightly. _Of course it's worth it,_ he thought. _Her safety was worth that and much more._ But he did see her point. Going through security tapes on his own was one thing, but they were indeed talking about hours of footage. Days' worth, really. There would be no getting ahead of it without Angela's help at the very least. Not to mention the security staffs at both her apartment complex and the Jeffersonian. And all of those people, including himself, had actual jobs to do as well. He sighed, unsure of the best solution.

"I see your point," he conceded. Brennan tried not to look overly smug, and Booth smiled indulgently, knowing how much she enjoyed being right. "Just be really careful, okay? I mean, we're together most of the time anyway, but when we're not, promise me you'll keep your eyes open."

"Of course. Please don't worry," she reassured him. They shared a smile, and Booth suppressed the urge to drive faster as his eyes drifted downward from her face. Her blue eyes were sparkling at him, and he'd been having trouble keeping his eyes off her body throughout the day. She'd chosen a rather low-cut shirt that morning, layered over her usual low-cut camisole, and the tops of her breasts seemed to taunt him as she moved, bouncing just enough to make his boxers a bit uncomfortable. Her jeans were _particularly_ well-fitting also, and more than once, his hands had itched to show her how much he appreciated them.

"Booth… You're speeding."

He looked down at the speedometer and cursed under his breath, easing off the gas.

"Is something wrong?" Brennan had seen his eyes wander, but she couldn't resist the temptation to play with him just a little bit. She loved when he looked at her like that. It never failed to send a spasm of desire right to her center, and today was no exception.

"No, just…just want to get home." Booth shifted uncomfortably in his seat. _Had her mouth looked like that all day? Pouty and full, like it was made for kissing?_ He tried to breathe deeply and clear his mind, but she wasn't playing fair.

"Are you uncomfortable? We could always stop and stretch...things." Booth's eyes widened at the implication, and she fought to keep a straight face. He was sure she hadn't meant it the way it sounded.

"Uh… well, we'll be home in another hour or so."

"Are you sure you can last that long?" Her face was perfectly innocent, but her tone was pure sex. Booth's throat _and_ pants tightened just a little more, and he stole a glance in her direction. She was turned toward him and leaning slightly forward in the seat, as though in concern. The result, of course, was that her shirt slipped just enough to reveal even more of her smooth skin.

"I'll be fine," he said hoarsely.

"Hmmm, I don't think so," she replied softly. "I think you should pull over." There was no mistaking her suggestive tone this time, and Booth looked at her sharply. She was smiling wickedly, and he realized that she'd been playing him. Their eyes connected, and the evidence of _her_ arousal was obvious. Her eyes only turned that color for one reason. His heart rate accelerated, and he pulled off the road with a bit more urgency than she was expecting. The momentum rocked her body forward as the car stopped.

"Get in the back," he instructed in a low voice. Brennan shuddered in excitement at his command, and she unfastened her seat belt with trembling hands. Booth used the doors to get to the backseat, but Brennan simply climbed over the center console.

He was sitting on the seat before she was even halfway over, and he reached forward to drag her body onto his. Their lips crashed against one another feverishly, and his tongue swept her mouth boldly. Brennan straddled his hips, her hands making quick work of his tie and buttons while he pulled the hem of her shirt from her waistband.

Brennan moaned into his mouth as his hands reached her skin, gliding purposefully up her sides to cup her breasts. He felt the lacy material of her bra and groaned at the way her breasts seem to be fighting to burst free from it, heaving with every breath she took. She lifted her lips from his long enough for him to remove her shirt, and she push his over his shoulders as well.

"God, you're beautiful," he breathed, unable to take his eyes of her. "I've been trying not to stare at you all day."

"I know," she admitted, pressing against his arousal that was blatant even through his dress pants. "I saw you."

She whispered the words into his ear and rocked her hips against him more insistently. He could feel her wet heat even through her tight denim jeans, and he groaned with longing.

"Mmm, and you were teasing me just a little bit ago, weren't you?" Booth asked, placing hot kisses to her throat in a downward pattern to her chest. He deftly flicked open the clasp on her bra and tossed it away from them.

"Maybe. Gonna do something about it?" She rotated her hips to make her point, breathing more heavily and running her hands over every delicious inch of his chest, shoulders, and back.

"Damn right." He rolled her body away from him to peel the torturously tight jeans off of her, and she wasted no time in removing his pants and boxers as well. "If you like those, you'd better take them off yourself," he advised, gesturing to the lacy boy shorts she was still wearing. She smirked and hooked her thumbs into the waistband to slide them off.

Then she was on top of him again, poised above him for only a moment before lowering herself to take him inside. His size stretched her, but the feeling was never uncomfortable. It was simply a sensation of being so incredibly full, and Brennan cried out at the ecstasy of it. Booth took hold of her hips and began to move within her, pushing forward and pulling back sinuously while she rode him.

Their lips met again, tongues fighting for dominance and mimicking the movements of their bodies. Booth had been imagining this for most of the day, and the fact that they were bold enough to be having sex in his FBI-issued vehicle made it that much hotter.

"Oh, God Booth…" The sultry tone of her voice was making him crazy with need for her, and he wrapped his arms completely around her waist, holding her tightly. "Yes…" she encouraged him. His movements became almost frantic as he pounded into her from below, and her orgasm came so quickly that it took her by surprise. She cried out with her release, clinging to his shoulders and helpless against the waves of pleasure that overtook her.

She spasmed around him exquisitely, heightening his own pleasure, and his climax followed swiftly on the heels of hers. They lowered their heads to one another's shoulders and struggled to catch their breath. He was still pulsating within her, and the feeling sent aftershocks through her body. Brennan moaned her satisfaction into the smooth flesh of his shoulder and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the base of his neck.

Booth pulled her back from him just enough to capture her lips with his own, and they kissed deeply while they continued to come down from the erotic high they'd reached.

"I guess this makes one more thing that I'll never be able to look at the same way," he managed through a slightly dry mouth.

"What's that?"

"The back seat," he answered with a charm smile.

"Mmmm…" Brennan placed small kisses along his jaw. "And what are the others?"

"Well your lab coat, for one." He began to return the tiny kisses over her neck, adding one more for every item on his list. "Your desk. The couch in your office. The window blinds in your office. The dining room table. The kitchen counter. Pretty much anything you put on when you get dressed in front of me, since I know what's underneath it. And the beds and showers in both our apartments, obviously."

"Couches too," she supplied dazedly. "I suppose we've made love in quite a few places so far."

"Mmhmm. I still think my office needs christened though," he told her, nuzzling into her sweet-smelling hair. She grinned widely, though he couldn't see her face.

"I think that's an excellent idea."

They held each other only a little longer before cleaning themselves up and getting dressed.

"Where's my bra?" she asked, looking around in confusion. Booth glanced around as well and snickered when he finally spotted it.

"It's on the dash."

She chuckled huskily and reached up to get it, unwittingly providing him with a very nice view of her rear end. She'd already put her underwear back on, and Booth couldn't resist the temptation to touch her. Brennan twitched in surprise at the contact and laughed at him as she grabbed her bra and sat back down to put it on.

"You were rather enthusiastic," she commented, looking pleased.

"Yeah, well…maybe that shirt should be relegated to the 'Not Safe for Work' category," he joked. Booth paused in the act of buttoning his shirt to wait for the words he knew were coming.

"I don't know what that means," she said, looking even more confused when his grin widened.

"It means that if you wear it to work again, I can't promise not to get you out of it _before_ we get back home." She smiled back at him and leaned in to kiss him slowly.

"What if I'm okay with that?" Brennan asked enticingly. Booth groaned and simply shook his head.

"Come on, baby. Let's get home."

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The warrant for soil samples ended up being unnecessary; the investigation of the funeral home was what broke the case. Brennan's quick thinking and 'superb skills of observation' led her to a casket showroom that had been previously used to harvest the bones from multiple decedents. Once they got the samples back to the lab, it was a relatively quick process of matching the sample to the bone biopsy they'd gotten from Kelly DeMarco. However, in addition to William Hastings, there was evidence of bone dust from seven other people.

Brennan explained that cutting through periosteum for grafting purposes would take medical training, and it was unlikely that the funeral director would be able to manage it on his own. She went with Booth to the Hoover to interrogate the man and stood in the observation room with Cullen.

"William Hastings had an aggressive form of cancer that was very rare. You made some pocket change off his grafts, and you didn't even tell his wife. Now a bunch of people are sick. Two died. You're looking at multiple counts of murder."

"I didn't kill anybody."

"No, no you didn't kill anybody. I mean, they were already dead. You were just recycling," Booth said sarcastically.

"I didn't do anything wrong."

"Do you have doctor training?"

"No."

"Spend any time in the service as a medic or a nurse?"

"No."

"No? Then who did the cutting? Who did the cutting of the grafts, huh? Somebody knew what they were doing." Booth was growing visibly angrier as he went on. "Your phone records show that during the months around Hastings' death, you received a dozen calls from disposable cells. Four different ones, huh? What do you make of that?" He slammed the file in his hand onto the table in front of him, and as Brennan watched the man deny any recollection of the phone calls, something flickered in her memory.

 _She had seen multiple cell phones in the transplant coordinator's office._ Brennan left the room without a word to Cullen and flagged down a cab once she'd gotten out of the building. Cullen didn't waste much time before barging into Booth's interrogation and putting the mortician's face into the wall. When Booth had successfully pulled his boss off of their suspect, he noticed Brennan's absence and struggled not to panic.

As he raced out of the building to his SUV, he replayed what she'd heard in his mind, attempting to reach the same conclusion she had. It didn't take him long.

"The cell phones," he muttered under his breath. She'd gone to the hospital. Alone.

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Brennan walked purposefully into Ogden's office, startling Alexandra as she methodically connected multiple cell phones to their chargers.

"Mind if I come in?" Brennan asked placidly.

"Not at all. I was just trying to keep things organized. What we do is so important, we can't risk making any mistakes."

"Ms. Combs, tell me...what do you use these phones for?"

"Recipients primarily," Alexandra answered politely. "We never know when a donor organ is going to come in, so it's imperative that they can be reached at all times."

"Ever use one yourself?" Brennan inquired. The other woman smiled but dodged the question.

"What can I do for you, Doctor?"

"Have you always wanted to work in a hospital? I mean, it's incredibly rewarding, I know. But have you ever wanted to study medicine?"

"I did at one time, yes."

Brennan nodded, now confident in her deductions.

"How do you feel, Ms. Combs? Have you been coughing at all? Do you feel a tightness in your chest?"

"I feel fine actually."

"How often does Dr. Ogden write prescriptions?" Brennan asked, switching tactics.

"Rarely. As coordinator, he doesn't practice."

"Yet, the pharmacy downstairs told the FBI that he wrote you a script for an expectorant for a cough."

"Well, there must be some mistake. He'd never…"

"You wrote that prescription for yourself, didn't you?" Alexandra chuckled and shook her head in response, and neither woman saw Booth lurking just beyond the doorway. "I know what you've been doing with Martin… to Hastings and the others. See, if you'd finished medical school, you'd know: bone dust is very dangerous if inhaled. When you were taking those grafts, I doubt you were wearing a mask. You're sick, Ms. Combs. And I don't just mean in a mentally disturbed way."

"This is ridiculous," Alexandra insisted, flustered. "You can't prove anything."

"We're in a hospital. Why don't we go get a chest x-ray and find out?"

Ogden approached the doorway to stand next to Booth, and both men entered the room.

"I'd like to read you your rights," Booth told Alexandra. The shocked confusion on Ogden's face was genuine; he'd had no idea what was going on in his own office.

Booth had called for backup on his way to the hospital, and he allowed another agent to transport the woman back to the Hoover. Brennan walked with him to the SUV and climbed in, but once he'd closed his door, Booth sat for a few moments without starting the engine.

"Booth?"

"Yeah."

"What's wrong?"

He could hear the concern in her voice, and he inhaled deeply before speaking.

"Do you remember our discussion in the car the other day?"

"I remember a discussion about the safety of my wardrobe in the workplace," she said with a saucy grin. Booth gave her a halfhearted smile.

"That's not the conversation I was talking about."

Brennan's smile dissolved and he watched her expression brighten with understanding.

"The discussion about someone following us again?"

"Yeah. When you promised you'd be careful. Remember?"

"Yes, of course. But I'm not sure why you're bringing it up now."

"Because you ran off and didn't tell anyone where you were going, Bones!" Booth tried to get a better hold on his emotions and continued more calmly. "I know I can't be with you all the time, but you promised you would be cautious. And taking a risk like that is the opposite of cautious, okay? Even if there isn't someone following you, approaching a murder suspect on your own is dangerous."

"She wasn't violent, Booth," Brennan reminded him hesitantly. The truth was that she hadn't considered any potential danger before she'd left the Hoover. She only knew that the suspect was aware that they were on her trail and could run at any moment, if she hadn't already. And the tortured expression on Cullen's face had made her desperate to make sure that Alexandra Combs didn't get away with what she'd done.

"Bones, she chopped up dead bodies and sold the parts to the highest bidder. Violent or not, she's not right in the head."

Brennan was silent for a moment but nodded in agreement. Booth was surprised to see her concede the argument so easily.

"You're right. I'm sorry I worried you."

Booth exhaled and gazed at her imploringly. "And in the future…"

"In the future, I'll do my best to remember not to approach suspects on my own," she promised. It was a little vague, but Booth supposed it would do for now.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Can we go home now?"

"Of course." He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips, hoping they'd really resolved the issue.

The following day, they tagged along with Angela to visit Amy Cullen. The girl was in the same position as before, but at least now, she and her family had some answers. Angela had felt that those 'answers' weren't nearly enough, however, and she'd spent most of the night creating a virtual reality tour of the Louvre. It was the nearest Amy would ever get to actually seeing it, and her parents were moved by the artist's generosity.

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Several days after they'd closed the case on the illegal bone grafts, Brennan's body gave her confirmation that she was _not_ pregnant. She wasn't sure how to feel about it, though logically she knew that there had never been a baby to regret not carrying. Her period was right on time, and she told herself that it was for the best. She did want a baby with Booth someday; she knew it for certain now. But it simply wasn't the right time.

When she told Booth, his expression remained guarded at first.

"Are you...okay with it?" he asked hesitantly.

"Yes, I believe so. Now isn't the right time, but…I do want to have a baby with you. Someday."

It was the first time she'd said the words so plainly, and Booth's smile brightened the room. She returned it confidently.

"Yeah?" His eyes twinkled even more when she nodded. "I love you, Bones. I feel like I can't ever say it enough." He pulled her into a tight hug and pressed a kiss to her temple.

"You say it every day," she chuckled. "And I love you too."

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The following week, they were called to Arlington National Cemetery by a report of a burnt body that had been found resting against the headstone of a well-known soldier. Booth had woken up in a good mood that morning, opening his eyes to see his gorgeous partner watching _him_ for once. He'd teased her mercilessly, but she'd refused to admit how long she'd been watching. They had made love against the shower wall until the water ran cool, and the call for the crime scene had come in as they'd been scurrying to get dressed.

The location of the crime scene took Booth's mood down a notch, and the theory that it was an act of protest against the war lowered it even further. His expression was irate as he pulled the SUV into a parking space and watched Brennan slip her crime scene jumpsuit on over her clothing.

She double-checked her bag to see that she had everything she and Zack would need in order to handle burnt remains, watching Booth through surreptitious glances. She'd watched his mood decline further and further as more details of the scene were relayed to him, and she knew instinctively that this case would be a difficult one for him.

"I never get used to the magnitude of this place, what it's taken to keep this country free," Booth said, his eyes sweeping the seemingly endless rows of white marble headstones. She followed his gaze and had to agree. She'd visited as a tourist and anthropologist when she'd first moved to DC, observing the Changing of the Guard ceremony, viewing the graves of former presidents, and so on. But it was the thousands of identical white stones that made the biggest impact for her.

"All societies build monuments to their dead, to convince future combatants that it's an honor to die in battle," she replied, unable to see the cynicism in the anthropological perspective.

"For these servicemen, it was. And for somebody to use this place to protest the war just pisses me off." His voice grew acerbic as he spoke, and he continued, "These are the lives that gave them the right. These men, they should be respected."

"If they were respected, maybe not so many of them would be buried here," she said sadly. She had analyzed the remains of many soldiers, and some of the things that had been done to their bodies were the exact opposite of _respect_.

"Are we gonna get into something here, Bones?' he asked a bit sharply. He'd misinterpreted her statement as a jab at the government.

"I don't see why. I think we both wish this place was a lot smaller." Brennan glanced at his expression again, noting that he looked even more perturbed as the remains came into view.

Zack had arrived with a few other forensic techs from the Jeffersonian and could be seen photographing the area as they approached it. An agent she vaguely recognized called out to them and gestured toward the body. Brennan could see even from a short distance away that the decedent was male, and she winced a bit as his charred remains.

"The accelerant was a charcoal starter," Zack announced.

"We didn't find a suicide note," said the agent who had previously addressed them. Brennan's eyes narrowed.

"If he was a protester, wouldn't he have left a note?"

"Didn't need to," Booth answered grimly as he examined the headstone the body was leaning against. "It's on Charlie Kent's grave. Press was coming out to do a tribute to him. One year anniversary of his death." Brennan looked up at him as she pulled on her gloves.

"Charlie Kent?"

"He was in the National Guard. About to be drafted by the NBA when he got shipped out to Iraq. He gave his life taking out a group of insurgents to save his unit. Won the silver star."

"It's male," Brennan said, trying to keep her focus on the work rather than the fact that Booth being upset was making _her_ upset. "African descent. Approximately twenty to twenty-nine years old. Too early to determine cause of death."

"I'm not a pro, but I'm guessing fire," Booth remarked snidely, and Brennan looked at him again in concern at his tone.

"The White House and DOD want an ID as soon as possible," the nameless agent told them.

"So they can brand him a traitor," Brennan surmised. Booth grumbled in response.

"Why do you have to be so cynical?"

"I'm not cynical," she denied. "It's a necessary psychology of warfare. Heroes and villains. Without clear distinctions like that, we'd never be able to fight." She stood from where she'd been squatting in front of the victim and circled around the headstone slowly.

"Yeah, well I always found being shot at was a motivating factor," he replied without humor. Brennan instructed Zack to bag the fragments of the victim's clothing that were laying on the ground as well as any singed plant life or debris from around the remains. Zack hurried to comply, but Brennan's attention was on Booth again. He'd paced a few feet away from them to stand in front of a different headstone, and she followed to join him.

"What?"

"It's Jamie Richards," Booth said solemnly. "We were in the Rangers together. He was hit by a roadside bomb, just outside the green zone. He left a wife and two kids. The fact that he was near this…" He trailed off, unable to articulate how angry the situation made him.

"You believe somehow he's still here watching?" Brennan asked quietly, already knowing the answer.

"Yeah. You don't. I get that." His reply was short, and Brennan hoped that he wasn't angry with her for some reason.

"I know you think he's a good man. That's enough for me," she said gently. She touched his arm lightly, but he only nodded without looking at her, leaning down to touch the headstone as Brennan returned to the crime scene to give Zack more instructions.

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Once the remains had made it to the lab, Brennan did her best to complete the preliminary exam in spite of multiple distractions. A local news channel was playing on one of the large flat screens, and the reporters were discussing their crime scene while cutting back and forth to shots from Charlie Kent's basketball career. Zack surprised them all by revealing himself as a basketball fan and reciting Kent's gameplay statistics from memory.

When Brennan had finally reached her limit, she walked over and switched off the TV, shooting a chastising look at Zack. Hodgins brought the conversation around to his controversial opinion of the war, but thankfully he was interrupted by a call to Goodman's cell from the DOD. Booth swiped his way onto the platform just as Angela and Hodgins determined that the remains belonged to a soldier named Devon Marshall. He'd been in Charlie Kent's unit and had been there the night Kent was killed.

"He was protesting?" Zack asked, sounding confused.

"Marshall could've had a change of heart. It's not like support for the war is increasing," Hodgins reasoned.

"It also could've been survivor's guilt. The guy who saved his life didn't make it. You can't imagine what it's like carrying that around," Booth stated. Brennan glanced at him, hearing something more in his tone than his guarded expression revealed.

"I don't think so, Booth. There's evidence of damage on the external auditory meatus…"

"Sorry, I don't remember that one, Bones."

"The opening in the skull where the auditory nerves feed into the brain," Zack offered.

"So we're talking _ear hole_?" Booth asked, looking exasperated. Brennan pursed her lips at his demeanor but answered in the affirmative. "They simplify those words for a reason, people."

"Something was jabbed into his ear hole," said Brennan, trying to remain patient with him. "Devon Marshall didn't die in the fire. He was murdered first."

Booth clenched his jaw and shook his head before stomping his way down the stairs and toward Brennan's office. She waited only a few moments before stripping off her gloves and following him. She found him pacing while he barked demands for information on Devon Marshall into his phone, presumably at Agent Burns.

Brennan waited until he'd ended the call before speaking.

"You're going to talk to the family?"

"Yeah, Charlie's texting the details in a minute."

"I'll go with you," she volunteered. He looked as though he wanted to tell her to stay at the lab, but he simply nodded. Brennan shed her lab coat and grabbed things, watching him read Charlie's text when it came. His temper was barely contained, and it concerned her. She hated when he was upset like this, but Brennan was also unsure if he could stay objective enough to work the case.

When she was ready to go, she walked toward him, hoping he would accept a hug. But he either didn't want to be embraced or didn't realize her intentions, because in the next instant, he was walking out of her office and toward the glass doors.

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"You know, I'm just going to be asking his mother a few questions. You could've just stayed back there and played with your bones," Booth told her grumpily.

"I know. I just wanted to keep you company, that's all."

"Company?'

"Yeah. It seemed like you might need it." Booth scowled through the windshield and ground his teeth. "I just think inside, you're still military, Booth. You might be too close to this one. I just wanna make sure you stay objective."

"I know how to do my job," he replied irritably.

"You're angry," she pointed out.

"Well, because I have people all around me with opinions about the war who don't know what the hell they're talking about!" He was nearly shouting, and Brennan was stunned by his vehemence. _Was he including her in that assessment?_ Her own anger flared, and she couldn't resist the urge to set him straight.

"I've been in Sudan, Rwanda… For two months I sifted through the wreckage of 9/11, trying to help the families of the victims."

Booth sighed, trying to calm down. He knew what she'd seen, but he'd forgotten momentarily. He'd been referring more to Hodgins and the other squints with his last statement. Booth rubbed the back of his neck guiltily.

"Yeah, I know," he said in a quieter tone. "I'm sorry, I wasn't talking about you really. Mostly Hodgins, I guess. All I'm saying is that this is just another case. That's all. It's just… It's another case."

Brennan gazed at him in concern and reached over to touch his thigh, since both of his hands were gripping the wheel.

"I'm your partner," she reminded him. " _Let me be your partner."_

He nodded stiffly and tried to relax enough to smile at her, but it ended up looking more like a grimace. Whether he wanted to admit it right then or not, he was taking the case too personally, and Brennan didn't know how how to help him.

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They didn't have to wait long for Regina and Kiara Marshall to arrive at Booth's office. Regina was Devon's mother, and she explained that her son had definitely shown signs of PTSD after his return from active duty. He had spent nearly all of his time with Kiara, his thirteen-year-old sister, taking her to school, helping with her homework, and so on.

Regina claimed that her son had been proud to serve his country, but admitted that he had most definitely come back as someone other than the son she'd raised. The only person he'd been speaking to other than his family was a man named Jimmy Martin from his unit. Jimmy was in the VA hospital at the moment.

They thanked the woman and her daughter, and Brennan assured Regina that she would be able to lay her son to rest soon. After they left, Brennan turned to her partner to find him looking drained and somber as he sat at his desk.

She stood and walked around to stand behind him, placing her hands on his shoulders and her cheek against his. Booth leaned into her slightly, closing his eyes when she pressed her lips to his cheek.

"Thanks, Bones."

"I love you," she replied, kissing his face a second time. "Let's go see what we can find out at the VA, alright?" Booth nodded and turned his head to look at her, reaching his own hands up to hold hers and bring them around to his chest.

"I love you too."

Brennan smiled and kissed his lips gently, glad that he was allowing her to comfort him, at least for the moment.

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Brennan chose to observe the interview with Jimmy and his wife at the VA rather than participate. She sat next to Booth as he questioned the man, who was clearly in distress that his friend was dead. Like everyone else outside of the investigation, Jimmy thought that Devon had committed suicide, and he was devastated.

Jimmy spoke to them about Devon's struggle with PTSD as well as his own issues, and Brennan remained silent until he brought up the night that Charlie Kent had been killed. She tried to get more information from him, but the man was clearly upset, and she wasn't all that surprised when Booth ended the interview and led her away. She did, however, manage to swipe a cigarette butt that Jimmy had discarded. If they could pull any DNA from it, they could match it to anything he might've left on Devon. Brennan didn't really think he was guilty of murdering his friend, but it would at least be one person to rule out.

They bickered on the way out, their words poised carefully on the edge between joking and arguing. As they neared the exit, a man's voice called out to Booth, and they turned simultaneously to see an older man rolling toward them in a wheelchair. Though his hair was completely gray, Brennan could tell by his bone structure that he was barely over fifty.

"Son of a bitch," the man said affectionately. Booth's expression brightened, which in turn brought a smile to Brennan's face as well.

"Hey, Hank!" Hank pulled him down into a brief, back-pounding man-hug. "How the hell are you, man?"

"Great, just got some new wheels." He angled his chair back and forth to show them off.

"Sweet ride, man. Hank Lutrell, Dr. Temperance Brennan," Booth said, introducing them quickly.

"The bone lady," Hank surmised, offering his hand. Brennan shook it politely

"That's me," she answered wryly.

"I heard you two were working together. Booth and I were in the same unit in Kosovo." He turned to address Booth then. "Hey, you gotta come over for dinner. Janie and the kids keep asking about you."

"Yeah, I'd love to. I'll call. We'll uh, make it a date, okay?" Booth replied a little awkwardly.

"Great. I gotta roll. I gotta be in court at three. They can't start without the judge," Hank joked. Booth patted him on the back as he wheeled away.

"Hey, call me, or I'm gonna kick your ass."

"Uh huh," Booth sighed. When Hank was out of sight, Booth's expression darkened once more.

"What happened to him?" she asked with a frown.

"He got hurt." He replied shortly, irritated again. Brennan's eyes narrowed, wondering what on earth she'd said to anger him this time. He walked away from her then, and she hated the ache it left in her chest.

The sooner they solved this case, the better.

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Their next stop was the National Guard base where Devon's unit had worked, and they were introduced to Colonel Shore and Captain Fuller. The latter had been in command of Devon's unit when Charlie Kent had been killed.

It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Dr. Brennan. You've helped us with some casualties that we never thought we'd be able to ID," Colonel Shore commended her. Booth looked at the floor for a moment, feeling guilty that he'd once again forgotten just how much his partner had done for her country. She had risked as much as any soldier, and he knew he'd been short with her.

"Someday, maybe I won't be needed."

"That's what we all hope," Shore agreed. "Captain Fuller, give Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan all the help they need."

Fuller snapped to attention as Shore left the room, then he gestured for the partners to take a seat. Brennan let Booth do the talking once more, worried that she might say something to upset Booth further.

"So this is your third tour in Iraq, Captain?" Booth asked.

"Yes. A National Guard unit can be difficult to lead. Nothing against the Guard, but usually they're inexperienced, shortchanged on equipment… But Kent's unit, they were one of the best I ever had."

"And Devon Marshall?"

"Marshall was a good soldier. But after he came back, he seemed to turn against the military. Saw _us_ as the problem over there. You must've known men like that."

"Some people just aren't cut out for it. Like Jimmy Martin," Booth said, watching Fuller's reaction.

"Jimmy's been having some troubles, but he still supports us."

"Both Marshall and Jimmy seemed like they had trouble getting over Corporal Kent's death. Any idea why it was so tough for them? Tougher than usual?"

Fuller hesitated a moment and then began to recount the night of Kent's death. He explained that he and four of his men-Kent, Marshall, Martin, and Lefferts-had been canvassing an area where insurgents had been reported. A sixth soldier, a woman, had stayed in the humvee. He had sent Kent and Lefferts around the back of a house while the rest of them got into position to enter through the front. Fuller said that one of the three insurgents must have seen Kent through the back and that he'd heard the popping sound of the enemy's weapon. When the rest of the unit had gotten to Kent and Lefferts, Kent was already dead.

"Sight like that stays with you," Fuller added. "But whatever Marshall was trying to do by desecrating Kent's grave… Kent saved the unit. Marshall can't take that away."

"Devon Marshall was murdered, Captain." Booth's tone was flat, and his gaze never wavered from Fuller.

"God…" He closed his eyes for a moment, and his expression looked weary.

"Any bad blood between him and Jimmy Martin?"

"Not that I know of," he answered distractedly.

Brennan spoke up then, doing her best to keep her tone respectful.

"We only have the after-action summary of the incident. I'd like to have the full report, Kent's autopsy, the photographs you took of the scene, and any other evidence that exists."

"You'll have whatever you need," he replied quickly.

They said their goodbyes and left the base, heading back to the lab in silence. Booth dropped her off at the doors, planning to return to the Hoover for a few hours, and Brennan felt the ache in her chest again when he left without kissing her goodbye.

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Booth returned to the Jeffersonian just after the military delivered the documents Brennan had requested of Captain Fuller.

"Private Kent's autopsy report is careless and incomplete. There was no incision, no x-rays. So there's no way to determine the amount of bullets he was hit with," Zack told Brennan incredulously.

"The ME marked seven entry points, but the report says there were only six bullets."

"I could've done better with a Crayola," he replied.

Booth joined them on the platform and glanced over the report quickly before throwing it down onto an exam table.

"Medical reports are done on the fly in combat situations. That doesn't mean they're falsified."

"Booth, the report is a mess," Brennan complained. "Ange, I'd like you to input these photographs and enhance them for as much detail as possible." Angela bickered with Hodgins for a moment before carrying the photographs to her office, and Brennan turned back to address Booth again. "This is a murder. We know Devon would visit Kent's grave; Jimmy said it was to apologize. He knew something about Kent, Booth. Something these reports will never tell us."

"So what do you want to do?"

"I want to exhume Charles Kent," she said simply. Booth's jaw fell open in shock.

"Exhume a _war hero_? Do you have _any_ idea what you're saying?"

 _And now he's angry with me again,_ Brennan thought sadly. She squared her shoulders, determined to do her job even if he disagreed with her methods. There was no other way.

"It's the only way we'll really know what happened to him."

"The report-"

"Which is sloppy and incomplete."

"He is supposed to be _honored_ this week, Bones. Not _humiliated_." Booth was doing his best to control his temper, but this was really taking it too far.

"Doesn't Devon Marshall deserve as much respect and honor as Kent?" she reasoned.

"I'm sorry, Bones. I can't let you do this," he answered, shaking his head in denial. Brennan drew herself up and inhaled deeply.

"I wasn't asking your permission, Booth. I can get the court order on my own. I was just kind of hoping for your _support_." Brennan stalked off the platform, leaving Booth to stare after her. He wondered vaguely how she was going to get an exhumation order, but it only took him a minute to recall the kind of contacts she'd gathered from her fieldwork. It would probably only take a single phone call.

Booth glanced furtively at the squints, all of them studiously avoiding eye contact and speaking to each other rather than him. He walked dejectedly toward her office and lingered in the doorway. She was on the phone. Booth listened to her side of the conversation, feeling extremely conflicted about the whole mess.

When Brennan ended her call and looked at him, her irritation faded. He looked weary and despondent, and her heart ached for him once more. She hated the distance she could feel between them, and what was coming next wouldn't make matters any easier.

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Thanks to Brennan's contact, the exhumation was done that very evening, and they weren't the only ones overseeing the process. Two uniformed soldiers stood a few dozen feet away with Charles Kent's parents. They were grief-stricken and shocked that their son's peace was being disturbed, and Brennan hoped that her remorse showed in her expression. She wished there was a way to solve the case without hurting anyone's feelings, but it just wasn't so.

Although Brennan knew what grief could do to a person, she was still shocked when Kent's mother approached Booth and slapped him across the face. Brennan's mouth hung open in astonishment, but Booth barely reacted to the sting. As they returned to the SUV, he was silent and guarded.

Kent's remains would be sent to the lab, and they would start a proper autopsy in the morning, but Brennan couldn't help feeling as though Booth would rather not be around her at the moment. Tears filled her eyes in spite of her struggle to compartmentalize as she steeled herself enough to say the words.

"If you'd rather not stay with me tonight, I'll understand."

Booth's jaw tightened and he gripped the steering wheel for probably the tenth time that day. He didn't want to spend the night away from her. Not at all. But his anger was clearly upsetting her, and he wasn't sure he could handle even one more thing to feel guilty about.

"I don't want to, but… maybe I should."

Brennan didn't know exactly what he meant by that, but she didn't think she could control her the emotion in her voice enough to ask. Her pride demanded that she keep herself together, at least until she was alone.

When he dropped her off at her apartment building, he asked cautiously if she wanted him to walk her upstairs. Brennan swallowed thickly and shook her head.

"I'll be fine. See you tomorrow." And with that, she was gone, leaving Booth to feel the same sense of loss when she didn't kiss him goodnight.

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Booth lay in his bed miserably, staring up at the ceiling. _What the hell was wrong with him?_ _She was just trying to solve the case. It wasn't her fault that the methods were uncomfortable for everyone._

His mind ran in circles, trying to get a hold on his anger. He wasn't mad at Brennan, he knew, but rather at the situation. Booth was proud to have served his country, even if what he'd done in that service had left him feeling bereft. He had followed his orders dutifully; he had taken lives to save the lives of others.

 _So why was it that he couldn't convince his conscience that he wasn't a murderer? Why couldn't his mind move on from the things he'd done?_

Booth rolled over in frustration, and his face fell right against Brennan's pillow. Her scent taunted him, as though calling him out for the fool he'd been. _What was he doing?_ Booth cursed and rose from the bed, grabbing his keys, cell, gun, and badge on his way out the door.

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Brennan had looked once at her empty bed and couldn't bring herself to sleep in it alone. So she'd grabbed Booth's pillow and curled up on the couch beneath a throw blanket. His pillow smelled like him, and she'd buried her face into it, inhaling deeply. It took hours to fall asleep, and when she finally did, her tears slipped from beneath her lids without her permission or knowledge.

It was past midnight when Booth let himself into her apartment quietly. He left the lights off, re-locking the door and heading straight for the bedroom. He only hoped that she wouldn't tell him to get out. It would be no more than he deserved, he thought ruefully. But when he walked through her bedroom doorway, a cold panic jolted through him.

 _She wasn't there_.

Booth flipped on the bedroom light to make sure he was seeing properly, and practically ran to check the bathroom. She wasn't there either. The light from her bedroom illuminated the hallway and part of the living room, and when he hurried to check the the rest of the apartment, he found her sleeping on the couch. His relief was dizzying, and he rolled his eyes at his own thundering heart.

He approached the sofa quietly and watched her in the dim light for a few minutes. Brennan looked like she might have been crying, and the thought of it made his heart contract painfully. _God, I'm an ass,_ he admitted inwardly. But she was sleeping on his pillow, so hopefully that meant she wasn't too angry with him.

Booth sighed and scooped her up into his arms, pressing a kiss to her forehead and rocking her a little before carrying her to bed.

 _I'm sorry, Bones._

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Brennan woke with a start several hours later, confused as to how she'd ended up in bed when she knew she'd fallen asleep on the couch. But her bewilderment only lasted a moment; she realized almost immediately that she was completely encircled by the muscular arms of Seeley Booth.

She rolled over carefully to look at him, still asleep and sharing her pillow. He looked far more peaceful than she'd ever seen him the day before, and she was glad that at least he wasn't suffering from a nightmare on top of everything else. It had been something she'd worried about as she'd struggled to fall asleep the night before. Nothing seemed to calm him in his sleep except for her embrace.

Brennan inched her face closer to his until their foreheads were touching, and she wrapped her arms around his torso. She didn't know what had changed his mind about spending the night alone, but she was infinitely grateful for whatever it had been.

She drifted off to sleep once more, allowing herself to be soothed by his warmth and love.

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 **So I decided to do a pregnancy 'scare' for multiple reasons. First, because I think it broadens the scope of Brennan's compassion for the Cullen family during that case. And second, because I don't know a single heterosexual woman who has never had scare. :)**

 **Let me know your thoughts!**


	25. Chapter 25

**Thank you for all of the wonderful feedback, whether it's here or on Twitter. It really makes my day!**

 **This might be one of my favorite chapters so far. Let me know if you like it too. :) Happy BonesDay!**

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Chapter 25

Brennan sighed contentedly in Booth's arms, waking slowly to the sensation of his lips ghosting lightly over hers. She responded immediately, gasping slightly and returning the kiss with exquisite care. Their lips moved against one another as though choreographed, giving and taking in equal measure. When at last they separated in need of oxygen, they both opened their eyes to look at each other.

"Hey," Brennan said quietly.

"Hey." Booth's expression was resigned and guilty, and she narrowed her eyes in concern.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm better now. I'm sorry, Bones. I was an ass, and you didn't deserve it."

"I understand why you were upset, Booth. I'm… I'm not very good at articulating things properly sometimes, especially when it involves something controversial, and-"

"No, baby, you didn't do anything wrong. It was me, not you. You were right when you said I was too close to it. I've been taking the case personally, and I took my anger out on you." He kissed her forehead fervently. "I'm sorry."

Brennan nodded in acceptance and squeezed him more tightly against her, wrapping a leg around his to bring him closer still. She took a deep breath and focused on the feel of him in her arms. The tension that had been so palpable the day before was almost completely absent, and she felt relieved as well.

"Today won't be easy. But if you're upset about something, you can talk to me. I want to be there for you, but you have to _let_ me."

"I know, Bones. I'll really try, okay?"

"Okay."

Booth stroked the smooth skin of her back tenderly, wishing that they could lay there all day. But they really did need to get up and head to the lab. He sighed in resignation when her alarm went off not five seconds after he'd had the thought, and she rolled out of his arms to silence it.

"Come on," she encouraged with a tiny smile. "Keep me company in the shower."

Booth grinned at the invitation and got up to follow her. At least they would start a bad day with something good.

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Booth had seen a lot of disturbing things in his life, and a good number of them had been right there in that lab. He had built up a fairly decent tolerance for having to see difficult things, or at least he thought he had. However, watching the squints unload the remains of Charlie Kent was truly testing his limits.

While the team did their squinting over the remains, Booth kept his eyes determinedly away from the body, choosing instead to focus on the items which had been buried with Kent. He picked up Kent's Silver Star and held it in his hand sadly, grimacing as he thought of the Bronze Star that adorned his own dress uniform-and how he'd earned it.

"You know, this is a Silver Star," he said to no one in particular. Brennan heard him and turned her somber gaze in his direction.

"I know how much you hate this, Booth."

"Let's just get this over with," he replied, swallowing thickly.

Brennan nodded and turned back to the exam table. She instructed Zack to take a full set of x-rays and Hodgins to run a tox screen and analysis of any particulates in the wounds.

"The DOD wants this done fast. They want this out of the press as quickly as possible," Goodman commented.

"It will take the time it takes to do it properly," Brennan answered firmly. Booth met her eyes, grateful for her dedication. If this had to be done, then at least he could trust her to do it right.

As Brennan discussed trajectory scenarios with Angela, Hodgins approached Booth cautiously. He had been doing a pretty well-rounded job of pissing everyone off with his political rhetoric throughout the case, and Booth leveled a deadpan stare at him.

"I know we don't see eye to eye on a lot of stuff because, you know, politically I think we live in an Orwellian nightmare due to-"

"What are you trying to say?" Booth asked tersely, crossing his forearms over his torso.

"Just-I'm sorry, man. I really am." Hodgins' face was completely void of sarcasm, and he did actually succeed in making Booth feel slightly better. Booth nodded in acknowledgment and watched Hodgins walk away. But his eyes fell once more to Kent's body on the exam table, and he struggled again with the fact that the dead soldier was so very young. He felt his eyes burning with tears that he refused to shed, and he very much wanted to be anywhere but where he was standing.

"Look, I'm gonna go...do what I do. Talk to some people."

He stalked off the platform, but Brennan removed her gloves quickly and caught up to him before he made it to the glass doors. She called his name to stop him, and when he turned back toward her, she immediately had her arms around him. Booth hugged her back, closing his eyes and allowing her to comfort him, even if just for a moment. If anyone was watching, no one seemed surprised by the display of affection.

"I love you. Let me know what you find out, okay?"

"I will. I love you too, Bones."

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While the squints were squinting at Kent's body, Booth decided that another talk with Jimmy Martin was in order. This time, however, he requested that Jimmy come to him, and they spoke in an interrogation room at the Hoover.

When Booth asked Jimmy for his version of the events the night Kent was killed, he grew extremely agitated, but after some gentle prodding, Booth convinced him to tell his story. As the man spoke, Booth felt as though he was experiencing deja vu. The story was identical to Captain Fuller's, right down to the way he described the popping noise made by the enemy's AK-47.

It seemed odd to Booth, but he reasoned that it was, after all, a reasonably accurate description for the sound of that particular weapon. Perhaps more intriguing was Jimmy's insistence that there had been nothing more he could do for Kent. The way he phrased it indicated that Jimmy was feeling guilty about Kent's death to a greater extreme than was truly appropriate, if the story he'd told was accurate.

Next he interviewed Private Campbell, who had been the only female soldier in Kent's unit. When the rest of them had approached the house, she had stayed in the Humvee due to combat regulations. However, she was the only one in the unit with any medical training, so when Kent had been shot, Captain Fuller had immediately called her in to try to help him. Once again, Booth felt an eerie familiarity to Campbell's description of the events, and especially ' _the pop-pop-pop'_ of the AK-47.

The pattern was repeated a third time with Lefferts, the man who had been ordered to approach the house from the back with Kent. He was more emotional than the others had been as he told the story, and his responses deepened Booth's suspicion that the whole thing was a lie. It simply wasn't possible for four people to tell the same story in exactly the same way, right down to the words used to describe a gun firing.

He allowed Lefferts to leave the Hoover, but he knew something wasn't right. Booth headed back to the lab, hoping that the team had been able to come up with some answers.

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"Their stories don't line up," he announced abruptly once he'd stepped onto the platform.

"You said the events seemed consistent," Brennan replied curiously.

"Exactly. We got a group of traumatized soldiers who all managed to say the same words to describe the shots. 'Pop, pop, pop.' It was rehearsed."

Brennan's eyes brightened in comprehension, and she pulled out a bullet from one of the entry wounds.

"That makes sense. There's something Devon knew about."

"And someone else didn't want to get out," Booth finished for her. He didn't know whether to feel pleased that they were actually getting somewhere or angry that it seemed to be some kind of cover up job.

"The way the blood pooled around these bullets proves that these three were the ones that killed him," she explained, indicating a few of the bullets she and Zack had extracted. Booth examined the magnified image of them on the flat screen panel and shook his head.

"These rounds aren't from an AK-47." He then gestured to a separate tray. "These are."

"Well, they didn't kill him. Circulation had stopped by the time these bullets hit."

"Wait. The ones that killed him were from an M-14. Those are from our weapons." Booth felt the reality of what had happened sink over him, and Brennan summarized his conclusion aloud.

"Friendly fire," she acknowledged sadly.

"Oh God." His face was ashen, and her concern for him grew.

"Booth-"

"Let's just find out who did this, alright? Not all personnel in a unit carry the same weapons. We have to find out who was issued an M-14."

Brennan remained on the platform while Booth went to her office to make a few calls, and he emerged a short while later, beckoning her to come with him. Once they were in the SUV, he explained what he'd learned.

"Lefferts was the only one issued an M-14."

"So Kent runs into the house, firing. The insurgents fire back. Lefferts follows Kent in. Lefferts is shooting, and he kills Kent," Brennan posited.

"Devon wanted to tell the truth, but Lefferts, he's got a successful legal practice. Too much to lose. Lefferts kills Devon."

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When they arrived at Lefferts' office, they found him hanging lifelessly from the ceiling, wearing the same clothes Booth had seen him in during his interview. He had left a suicide note confessing to killing Kent, but Lefferts' assistant told them that he'd been out of town on the night Devon was killed. He wasn't their murderer.

They returned to Booth's office to go over the facts they'd gleaned thus far, but they were interrupted by Bradley Kent, Charlie's father.

"Mr. Kent," Booth acknowledged as he stood. "This is Dr. Brennan."

"I know."

"I'm sorry I exhumed your son, sir. But we needed-"

"No, please. Thank you. It's important for us to find out how he died," the man said determinedly. Booth asked if he would like to sit, but he declined. "I just wanted to ask. There are so many conflicting stories. Now the captain says he can't talk to us. I just wanted to ask you to find the truth. My wife and I can't live not knowing what happened to Charlie. We need the _truth_."

"Of course," Booth replied. As Mr. Kent left his office, Booth couldn't help but think of someone else who always needed the truth. He pulled Brennan into his arms, and he held her tightly for several minutes. Booth couldn't have cared less who might be looking at them through his open doorway or what anyone might say about it.

When Brennan had exhumed Kent's body, Booth had momentarily forgotten the reasons for her relentless dedication to solving their cases. Instead of supporting her through something that she too had found difficult, he'd been short-tempered with her. _No more_ , he thought.

His mind drifted guiltily to her parents' disappearance and the file that was even now sitting in his desk drawer. With the trouble in New Orleans and then with Cullen's daughter, Booth's opportunities to work on the investigation had been extremely limited, but he resolved to get back into it as soon as this case was solved.

He would redouble his efforts so that perhaps he could give her the same answers she worked so hard to provide for others.

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A trip back to the base for another chat with Captain Fuller proved unhelpful, and Booth couldn't help but think that the man had known about the truth of the friendly fire incident all along. He simply couldn't prove it yet.

"You sure you don't want to come? I think Hank liked you," he suggested with a weary smile. Booth had agreed to meet Hank Lutrell for lunch that day, but Brennan had insisted on getting back to the lab.

"Thank you, but I think it'll be good for you to spend some time with him. Maybe he can help you cope with your emotional responses to the case," she answered quietly. Booth nodded but wasn't sure he felt like talking to Hank about things.

"Okay, well… Make sure you get some lunch with Angela or something, okay?"

Brennan nodded reassuringly and leaned over the console to kiss him once he'd pulled to a stop outside of the main doors. They exchanged their I Love Yous and said goodbye, and he didn't pull away until she had entered in the building.

Not long after Brennan had returned to the platform, Hodgins discovered a splinter pattern of wood particles that had been blown back into the exit wound from the AK-47 bullets. After a moment's consideration, Hodgins postulated that Kent hadn't been standing in the middle of the room when he was fired upon by the insurgents' weapons. He'd been on the floor. Someone had fired an AK-47 at him after he had already died in order to make it look like the insurgents had killed him.

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Booth's lunch with Hank was more emotional than he'd expected, but he simply wasn't in the mood to trade happy stories with an army buddy that day.

"Listen, Hank… I got this case, Charles Kent. It's friendly fire."

"Oh god," Hank answered grimly.

"Yeah. Covered up. Two of the members of the squad are dead. One murdered. You know, whatever went down must've been pretty ugly."

Hank shook his head sadly at the images his friend's words had stirred in his mind, and Booth continued.

"You know, Hank...you know what, uh...what _we_ did?"

"Don't go there Booth."

"Was it worth it? I mean, look at you," Booth said, gesturing to the wheelchair.

"You saved my life," Hank reminded him. "I've got a great family because of you."

"Yeah, but I mean…why was it always a secret?"

"We were given a choice. They always gave us a choice."

Booth disagreed with that particular assessment, but he didn't want to argue.

"Yeah, but that last time…"

"Well, you knew what was at stake," Hank replied. That was true. Booth had recited the numbers in his head so many times that they might still be etched on his brain, if that were how things actually worked. He nodded in agreement, and Hank leaned in toward him. "You never talked to anybody about it?" Booth shook his head. "You've got to. How about your girlfriend? That doctor?"

"She knows some things, but...I didn't really tell her about specific stories."

"Then you should. And bring her to dinner on Sunday, huh? We're still on, right?"

"Yeah. Look, I need to get back to work. I'll see you Sunday." Booth shook his friend's hand and walked away, leaving the other man to stare after him in concern.

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Booth strolled into the lab a short while later and spotted Brennan in Angela's office. She looked stricken and pale, and he quickened his pace to reach her.

"Hey. What's wrong? Have you found anything yet?"

"Yes. None of these people were armed when Kent went in there," she told him, indicating the pictures of the scene that were magnified on Angela's computer screen. "All of the weapons were planted on them after they died. Fuller's unit killed an _unarmed family_."

"Kent shot unarmed people?" Booth asked, feeling slightly sick.

"They look like a family."

"How could something like this have happened?" Angela asked, upset.

Booth gazed at the photos again for a few moments before answering, giving them his theory of what had probably happened while Brennan filled in the blanks. Kent had been young and inexperienced, and when he entered the house, he'd thought he was being attacked. He was shooting as he entered, most likely killing the woman first and then the others who had rushed to help her. Lefferts would've heard the firing and gone in after him, only to see Kent turn to him with his weapon still raised, and he'd shot Kent.

It would've happened in seconds, and for it to have gone down that way, the person who put the cover-up in place would've been the man in charge.

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When they confronted Fuller, he didn't bother to deny the accusations, but it took the presence of Colonel Shore to force his compliance with an arrest. They returned to the lab to work out the rest of the mystery: who had killed Devon Marshall?

"Zack found some discoloration on Devon's vertebrae. It was caused by residue from pethidine, which is an opiate also known as Demerol. Someone jabbed a syringe into his neck, creating an indentation in the bone. He would've been unconscious in seconds. That's why the instrument could've been placed in his ear without a struggle."

"It was a nine-inch surgical curette like this," Zack added, holding up a silver medical instrument that reminded Booth vaguely of a dental tool.

"So we're looking for someone with access to surgical tools and prescription drugs," Brennan concluded.

"Someone the army sent to medical school," Booth replied. "Private Campbell."

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Campbell was arrested with minimal fuss, explaining that Devon had been planning to reveal the truth about what happened to Charles Kent. Brennan returned to the lab to make sure that everything was in order for Kent's reburial as well as the release of Devon Marshall's remains to his family. Booth waited in her office, attempting to get a headstart on the paperwork.

"I think I've got everything covered," Brennan announced wearily as she sat down on the couch next to him. He was leaning forward to read the files spread out on the table in front of him, but she reclined against the back of the couch and rubbed his back soothingly.

"Thanks, Bones," he said quietly, tossing his pen onto the table. He sat back against the couch, and she allowed him to pull her onto his lap. Brennan was surprised by his actions but didn't question it, deciding to simply be grateful that he was no longer pushing her away. When they'd woken up that morning, she wasn't sure if the change in his temperament would last. The day had been difficult for him of course, but at least he had let her comfort him.

"Any time. Are you ready to pack this up and go home? We can grab dinner on the way."

Booth nodded but then gave her a playful sideways glare. "You being the one to bring up food usually means that it's been too long since you've eaten." Brennan shrugged and got off his lap, avoiding the question.

"Do you want to take all of this with us?" she asked, gesturing to the mess of files on the table.

"Yeah, I'd really like to just get it done and be finished with this case sooner rather than later." Brennan nodded and him pack everything into her shoulder bag. "Hey, let's go to Sid's, huh? I don't know about you, but I could use a drink."

"That sounds good," she answered, and as they walked out of the lab, she slipped her hand into his. He squeezed it back and gave her a smile. Brennan could tell that something was still troubling him, but she knew that he had to be the one to decide whether or not to share certain things with her. As much as she wanted to be supportive of him, she also recognized that what he might need the most was time to cope.

Sid was pleased to see them and had their drinks poured quickly. Brennan sipped hers slowly, not wanting to drink too much on an empty stomach. They chatted comfortably as they ate their meals, and Brennan noticed that Sid seemed to have gone out of his way to ply Booth with comfort food. Pie was not generally something on his menu. Brennan nodded at him appreciatively, and Sid returned the gesture, needing no interpretation.

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Booth waited for her in bed that evening as she finished up in the bathroom, mentally preparing himself for the conversation he knew he needed to have with her. She knew a lot about his past, more than most people, but she didn't know what haunted him the most. She didn't know the horrible parts of what he'd done beyond whatever vague assumption she'd made that first night that they'd shared themselves with one another, when he'd told her that he had been a sniper.

Brennan emerged from the bathroom, rubbing lotion into the skin of her hands, and Booth smiled at the familiar sight. Her latex gloves often left her skin irritated or dry, so hand lotion was a daily ritual for her. She always applied it right before bed, and watching her do it now was a comforting reassurance. She was still his Bones.

"No, leave it on," he told her, halting her intentions to switch off the lamp on the nightstand. She raised her brows curiously but complied, climbing onto the bed and settling into the arms that he opened for her. Booth knew that if he was going to talk to her about things, he needed to see her face so that he could gage her reactions.

"Are you okay?" she asked, knowing the truth but hoping for a different answer anyway.

"I, um…" He pulled in a fortifying breath. "I've done some things." Booth's voice was soft, nearly a whisper. Brennan tightened her arms around him and nodded.

"I know."

"No… no, you don't."

"But it's okay."

"Well, not-not as a secret. It's not. But I have to be honest about myself. I have to be able to tell someone, and you deserve to know."

Brennan nodded and brought a hand up to his face, gently smoothing the stubble on his cheek. She remained silent and simply waited, and after a few moments, he began to speak haltingly.

"I was sent to Kosovo. There was this Serb, General Raddick, who led a unit that would go into villages and… you know, destroy them. Women, children, all killed because he wanted to ethnically purify his country. He'd done this twice before," he said, speaking a little faster. "I mean, we had facts, _proof_. Two hundred thirty-two people, just erased."

Brennan pulled herself closer to him and stroked the bare skin of his back, waiting for him to continue.

"I was the sniper sent to stop him. He was set to leave in a couple hours. It was his son's birthday. A little boy, maybe about six or seven. I can still hear the music from the party, you know? That song just playing in my head." Booth shook his head vaguely. "Nobody knew where the shot came from, but they all knew _why_ it came.

"They said I saved over a hundred people. But, you know, that little boy who didn't know who his father was...who just loved him...he saw him die, fall to the ground, right in front of him. That little boy, all covered in his daddy's blood, was changed forever. It's never just… It's never just the one person who dies, Bones. _Never_. We all die a little bit, you know? With each shot, we all die a little bit."

Though he'd wanted the light on so that he could see her face, Booth was too nervous to look at it now. _Would she think him a monster? Like the murderers they'd caught, or worse?_

"I love you, Booth."

He looked down at her, genuinely surprised. She was looking into his eyes with unflinching loyalty and compassion, and it humbled him. Brennan must've read the confusion in his expression, because tightened her arms around him even more.

" _You are a good man."_ She spoke each word with emphasis and clarity, and he could see that she believed what she'd said. The tears which had gathered in his eyes as he told the story now spilled over without his permission, and she reached up to brush them away.

"You have to stop thinking of yourself as anything else," she told him. Booth swallowed thickly and looked like he wanted to argue with her, so she placed a finger to his lips to stop him. "You have killed people, but it doesn't make you a murderer. You've saved so many more lives than you've taken. I know that metaphorical cosmic balance sheet of yours is your way of doing penance, and if that's what you need to do to make peace with things, then so be it. But you have to stop hating yourself for this, Booth. For this incident and all the others."

"There were so many, Bones," he whispered brokenly. "So many."

"And what kind of men were they, Booth? Were they good, compassionate, generous men?" He shook his head but couldn't speak. "No. They were tyrants. Monsters of the worst kind. I know the kind of men they were. And I know the kind of man _you_ are. Even though we didn't get along at first, I knew from the very beginning that you were a _good man_. And when you need reminding, I'll be here to do it."

"I love you, Bones. I love you so much, baby." Booth buried his face into her hair and drew a shaky breath, willing his emotions to stabilize. He pressed kisses to each of his favorite places. Her forehead, right at her hairline, the place just below her ear, her temple, the tip of her nose, each of her warm cheeks, and finally her soft lips. When his mouth connected with hers, she returned the kiss deeply, bringing a hand to the back of his neck and sighing when his tongue slipped slowly into her mouth.

They continued to kiss and hold each other long into the night, and he told her more stories from his army days. Some were painful memories, but most were happy. He recounted humorous incidents, described the men he'd served with, and listed the places he'd been, just as she had done several months earlier. Brennan didn't push for more information than he was able to give her, and Booth began to feel more lighthearted and relaxed as they talked. The weight on his shoulders may have been metaphoric, but the relief he felt in its absence was completely real.

After he finished telling her about Hank Lutrell, he recalled the dinner invitation that had been extended to her as well.

"That reminds me. Hank invited us both to dinner at his place on Sunday. He and his wife are really looking forward to it. You'll come, right?"

"Of course, if you want me to."

Booth gave her the best smile she'd seen on his face in days, and she felt the tension in her own body ease in response. _He was going to be okay._

"I want you to. You'll like Janie; she's really sweet. They've got a couple of teenage kids too." Brennan felt a little nervous at the prospect of meeting his friends, but she seemed to have managed well enough with his grandfather, so she tried to remain optimistic. Booth must've seen the flicker of insecurity in her eye, because he went on to say, "Don't worry, Bones. They'll love you."

"How do you know?" she asked with a tiny laugh.

"Because _I_ do."

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The partners attended the graveside services for Charles Kent and Devon Marshall a few days later, where Brennan was surprised to see the soldiers' mothers embracing. She wondered passively if the two would become friends now, bonding over the loss of their sons.

Their paperwork was completed, the case officially closed, and both hoped that they would have a bit of a reprieve before their next case. Especially since the last three had been so emotionally taxing. Their next hurdle was a trial for their pirate case from several months prior.

Booth threw his efforts back into the investigation of her parents' disappearance, deciding to dig farther back into their pasts. He hoped that perhaps something in their histories could explain what had happened to them.

Dinner at the Lutrells' went even better than Booth had expected. As he'd predicted, his friends took to Brennan immediately. Hank wasted no time in pulling Booth aside to lecture him about not screwing things up, and Booth was forcibly reminded of a different Hank who had said nearly the same thing several months previously. Janie turned out to be a fan of Brennan's book, and she was very excited to learn that another would be published in the next few months. Brennan promised to send her an autographed advance copy as soon as the printing started.

Brennan managed to finish the final chapters of her book and submitted it to her publisher for review. Booth pestered her relentlessly to allow him to read it, but Brennan stood firm in her refusal.

"If you don't want anyone to read it before it's published, then why did you tell Janie that you'd send her an early copy?" he asked with just a hint of petulance. He really didn't understand why she was so adamant that he wait until the book hit the shelves. Booth watched her, sitting at a barstool in his kitchen, answering a few emails while he did the dinner dishes.

"Because," she replied, looking up from her laptop screen, "it's more fun this way." Booth shook his head and made a 'hah' kind of noise, smiling as though she'd just issued a challenge.

"Oh, Bones… You're playing me again?" He moved in slow, confident steps toward her and stood extremely close. Brennan's heart fluttered at his proximity and the delicious scent of him. She would know it anywhere now.

"What if I am?" she asked tauntingly, turning to face him and gliding her hands over his chest toward his shoulders. Booth grinned appreciatively, noting the seductive shade of her eyes.

"Then I think you should make it up to me...by doing something nice," he replied, brushing his fingertips across her collarbones, over her shoulders, and down the length of her arms. He very much wanted to pull the low-cut camisole over her head at that moment, and when she shuddered at his touch, he knew she wanted it too.

"Is that so? What did you have in mind?"

"Hmm," Booth crooned, dipping his head to press an open-mouthed kiss to the base of her neck. "I think you should give me a little preview of what Kathy and Andy will be getting up to in this book. I know you've written some steamy scenes for this one."

" _How_ do you know?" she asked, surprised by the confidence of his statement. The file was password protected on her computer. She knew he hadn't read it.

"I can always tell when you're writing the sex scenes, baby. You get all flushed and fidgety. Your breathing accelerates, and you squirm around in your seat a lot."

Brennan's mouth fell open in shock at his astute observations, and Booth took the opportunity to capture it in a slow, deepening kiss. Her protests were forgotten, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him. Booth pulled her out of her seat and into his arms, allowing her to wrap her legs around his waist.

He carried her into the bedroom, their mouths still questing for dominance, and he sat down on the edge of the bed. It was Brennan's turn to surprise him then, pushing him backward against the mattress and rolling her hips tantalizingly against his arousal. They continued to battle one another for control, rolling over together on the bed more than once.

When at last the need for oxygen was too great, they broke apart, panting excitedly. He was hovering above her now, and he trailed one finger against the skin of her chest, tracing the neckline of her tank top.

"So tell me...what would Andy do next?" he asked, in a low tone that made her ache for him. She grinned at him, imagining the exact scene that had left her wanting to drag Booth to bed the second she'd finished writing it.

"He'd tell me what he wants me to do," she answered huskily. She watched the surprised grin spread across his face, and she nodded at his unspoken question. _Yes, really_. Turns out, fiercely independent Kathy didn't mind being submissive in the bedroom.

"I want you to take off your shirt. Please," he added. She smiled and did as he requested, and his own smile became just a bit more dazzling. "And your bra."

Brennan smirked, glad that he was willing to play along. She arched her back to reach behind it, not only allowing her to undo the clasp but effectively thrusting her breasts toward his face. Booth was never one to waste an opportunity. He grunted slightly and captured one hardened peak into his mouth. Brennan gasped in response.

Booth lavished attention upon both of her breasts in equal measure, licking, sucking, teasing until she was writhing beneath him and gripping his shoulders. When he finally pulled away, he was breathing heavily, and he stood up quickly to discard his clothing and slide Brennan's pants over her long legs.

She watched him through heavy-lidded eyes, a satisfied smile playing around her lips as she inventoried each muscle and bone in his body. She would never grow tired of looking at him, and a rush of possessiveness crashed through her without warning. _He was hers_.

Once her pants were removed, he knelt on the floor and brought his face level with her center. She began to breath a little harder in anticipation, watching him peel away her underwear at a deliberately slow pace.

"Tell me what you want," he said, raising one leg into the air and pressing hot kisses against against the inside of her knee. Brennan moaned.

"Put your mouth on me."

Booth grinned in response and moved slowly toward the junction of her thighs, dropping a line of kisses against her inner thigh as he went. By the time he reached his destination, Brennan thought she might go mad with want. Her desire for him was a physical ache, deep in her core. When he dipped his tongue between her folds, she uttered a sound that was somewhere between a grunt and a sigh.

Her hips thrust against his face of their own accord, and Booth used the movement to plunge his tongue even deeper before capturing her clit lightly between his teeth. She shouted at the unexpected pressure on the tiny bundle of nerves, signaling that she was near her first orgasm. Booth sucked the sensitive flesh forcefully into his mouth, allowing his tongue and teeth to torment her simultaneously.

The sensation sent her rocketing over the edge, and her body trembled against his mouth while she shouted his name and God's as well. Booth continued to taste her as she calmed, refusing to let her come down completely.

"Booth," she pleaded. Her over-sensitive flesh needed just a bit of a break. He glanced at her face, understanding her need for reprieve, and he moved slowly up her body, using his mouth to worship every divine inch of her abdomen and chest. "Tell me…" she whispered.

"Touch me, baby." He caught her hand gently and brought it to rest on his erection, groaning at the exquisite pleasure of her slim fingers circling him. She stroked her hand skillfully over his rigid length, intentionally keeping her movements slow enough to make him crazy with desire. If he wanted more, he was going to have to say it.

"Ughhh God, Bones."

"Tell me. Should I suck you? Let you pump into my mouth until you come? Or should I straddle your hips and ride you? Or crouch on my hands and knees so you can take me from behind?"

Booth practically growled at her words, quickly pulling her hand from him and pressing _both_ of her hands into the mattress above her head. He leaned down to kiss her and didn't stop until she was breathless. Before Brennan could say another word, he was rolling her over and pulling her hips up toward him.

 _Bingo, baby_.

"Is this what _you_ want, Bones? To be bent over and _fucked_ until that beautiful, genius brain of yours can't form a single coherent thought?"

" _Oh, god. YES. Please…"_ she cried. He wasn't going to make her wait for it.

Booth positioned himself quickly and entered her completely with one long stroke. She screamed as he bottomed out and withdrew for a half-second only to plunge forward again. And again. He thrust into her at a feverish pace, revelling in the sensation of her tight heat clenching down on him over and over.

Brennan was beside herself with ecstasy. The force of his movements was so great that it was all she could do to remain upright on her hands and knees. The faster he slammed into her, the more intense it became, until she was crying out with another release. Every nerve in her body seemed to be electrified.

Booth felt it as well, and as her inner walls began to spasm rhythmically, he could hold back no longer. He erupted into her with a shout of surrender, gripping her hips so hard that she knew she would have light bruises in the morning. But Brennan was beyond caring at that point. She was floating on a haze of pleasure, and she collapsed face down on the bed, completely drained of energy.

He dropped onto the mattress beside her, and their short, gasping breaths synchronized as they attempted to summon their powers of speech.

"Holy hell, Bones. Was it like that in the book?" he asked, still panting.

"No… That was better."

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As the days progressed into the following week, Booth began to feel more and more like himself in the wake of the Devon Marshall case. He hadn't realized how distracted he'd been until he once again felt that familiar tingle of intuition on the back of his neck. They were walking from the SUV to the Jeffersonian's doors in the parking structure, and he instinctively put an arm around Brennan to pull her closer. Booth's eyes swept the rows of cars for a sign of anyone else's presence, but the entire level seemed quiet.

"What's wrong?" she asked, wondering why he was suddenly behaving as though something was going to swoop down upon them at any moment. Brennan looked back at his face, stumbling a bit as he ushered her forward, and she immediately recognized his expression.

"Just keep moving. Once you get past security, I'm gonna get one of the guards to do a sweep with me and catch up with you in the lab, alright?"

She sighed, feeling slightly exasperated and certainly fatigued with the entire situation. Booth ignored her attitude, and kept a wary eye on the vehicles nearest them. He cursed inwardly as he saw that the security desk just inside the entrance was vacant. He realized that he would have to lose sight of the parking level in order to get her to the next security checkpoint, but there was no way he was leaving her alone to walk there by herself. Not when his gut was screaming that something wasn't right.

The moment they'd entered the doors and rounded the corner to walk the hundred or so feet to the next security desk, a late-nineties black sedan pulled discreetly from one of the parking spaces near the exit and left the garage. Neither Booth nor the security guard he brought back with him had seen its departure or noticed that there was one less vehicle than there had been just minutes earlier. Their security sweep turned up nothing out of the ordinary, and Booth was frustrated. He _knew_ someone else had been there.

Not being able to get a handle on the situation was maddening, and Booth couldn't recall the last time his instincts had been this keyed up only to end up being proven wrong.

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The following Monday, both partners were expected to testify in the murder trial pertaining to their pirate case from a couple of months earlier. Booth called her to let her know that he was on his way to pick her up, and Brennan did one last check of the file she needed for her testimony. She realized with dismay that her original notes weren't in the folder where they should have been, and she began to search her desk and other files.

She'd used photocopied notes for the Warren Granger trial, and the defense attorney had made her look unprepared. Brennan gritted her teeth at the memory and continued to dig through her files. Goodman was in her office, prattling about his need for an ethnicity identification on a skull he'd been working on, and the distraction was making her more flustered.

"I'm in court today. I need my notes…" she groaned, still not finding them.

"Well, there's a photocopy in the file," he answered in a tone that implied she was overreacting.

"No, the last time I read from photocopies, the defense lawyer told the jury I was 'winging it.'" She recalled being thankful that she had actually known that particular phrase and thus did not have to ask what it meant-something that would have made her look even more unprepared.

"Ready? Chop, chop!" Booth appeared in the doorway, clapping his hands as if it would make her physically move faster. He stepped behind her and pulled her lab coat off to reveal a deep red sleeveless dress layered over a black lace camisole. Booth unconsciously licked his lips a little but forced himself to focus and grabbed her suit jacket from the hook.

"I can't find my original notes…" she fretted.

"Photocopy in the file," he replied quickly, motioning with his hands that she needed to come with him immediately.

" _No_ , the last time, the defense lawyer told the jury that I-"

"It was a ploy. It failed. _Let's go_ ," he interrupted. An unexpected traffic reroute for construction had delayed him in getting to the Jeffersonian, and now they were running very late. He ushered her from the office, helping her into her jacket as they went.

Hodgins approached them and matched their strides for a moment.

"I found glass; I found pollen. Which do you want first?" he asked, referring to one of the Limbo cases the team was currently working on. They hadn't pulled an FBI case since Devon Marshall, so Brennan had been keeping them busy with numerous cases from Bone Storage. She replied that she wanted the results on the pollen first, and Hodgins disappeared once more. Goodman was following them, still not giving up on the ethnicity analysis he needed from her.

"Perhaps you could swing by archaeology on your way to-"

"No. No swinging," Booth interrupted him, clasping Brennan's shoulder and elbow to keep her moving. He cursed inwardly as yet another squint tried to distract his partner.

"Alright, her height is makes no sense and her spine is...wacky," Angela told her.

"Okay, calculate the height off the femur and assume that the fire shrunk her spine." Booth moved a hand to gently stop Angela from following them any further before returning it to Brennan's shoulder. Zack was calling her from the platform as well, and Booth was really beginning to lose his patience.

"I don't think you should talk about other cases so much on court day," Booth commented. "You might get confused." Brennan ignored the assumption and tried to reach for the file in his hand, but he pulled it out of her reach as they rounded the platform. Goodman asked again for five minutes of her time to make the ID he needed, but she ignored him, moving instead up the stairs to the platform where Zack was still trying to get her attention.

"Bones!" Brennan ignored him and asked Zack what he needed.

"What's up?"

"Buttercup. If you sign off on these tissue markers, Angela can finish the facial reconstruction," he explained as they walked to the nearest exam table. The skull in question sat cushioned in a small rectangular bin.

"Why did you say buttercup?"

"'What's up, buttercup' is an amusing, rhyming, linguistic meme," he remarked before indicating the skull. "This is the latest Jane Doe from Limbo."

"How 'bout this for an amusing, rhyming linguini-'See ya later, alligator,'" Booth said irritably, attempting to pull Brennan away again. She shrugged him off and turned back to the exam table. The others continued to talk around her, but she was trying to focus on the skull. Something was odd about it, and even she felt herself 'squinting' at it.

"No sign of foul play…" she said vaguely, ignoring Goodman's requests for help yet again. "Tissue depth of the cheekbones and along the jawline looks a little deep to me, but otherwise-"

"Out of limbo, back on earth, and on our way to court. Thanks." Booth blocked her view of the skull with the file he was carrying and urged her back down the platform steps. Angela had been standing quietly on the platform, amused at the chaos and Booth's frustration.

"I hope you have your original notes, Sweetie. Cause last time…"

"Told you, Booth!"

"No, Bones! We don't have time!" Booth shot a death glare at Angela, and Brennan sent one of her own in _his_ direction, turning back toward her office.

Her heels clicked away, and Booth turned to glower at Angela wearily. She cringed apologetically and retreated to her office to work on her facial reconstruction. Goodman followed her. Booth shouted to Brennan that he would wait for her out in the hallway but didn't get a reply.

After another few minutes of searching, Brennan had failed to find her original notes and finally given up, crossing the lab at a near run. As she passed Angela's office, she noticed that her friend had uploaded the facial parameters of Zack's Jane Doe case. At first, her brain didn't process what it was that drew her eyes back to the window in a double take, but after a moment of cold shock, she hurried into the room, her face ashen.

"Is something wrong?" Goodman asked, concerned at her pallor. Brennan ignored him and addressed Angela.

"What's this?"

"Zack's Jane Doe. He said you okayed the tissue markers." She adjusted the image from her control pad, not noticing Brennan's alarm.

"No, that can't be right. That can't _possibly_ be right," she said adamantly. Angela was startled by her tone and looked at her face then. "You did it _wrong_. It's a _mistake_ , Angela."

"Alright, fine, Sweetie. I'll turn it off," Angela answered, concerned at Brennan's sudden intensity. She made the image disappear, but Brennan was already running from the room in the direction of the platform.

"Zack!. The artifact bag from your Jane Doe-do you have it?" She ran up the platform steps, setting off the alarm and snatching the padded envelope from Zack's hands. He was talking to her about the evidence, but she couldn't hear him over the adrenaline-induced buzzing in her ears. She was down the steps and back in her office in seconds.

Brennan tossed her court file down and hastily brushed other files off her desk to clear a space, pausing only a moment to read the label on the bag and take a breath. _Please, no…_ She felt her eyes begin to sting as she emptied the contents of the envelope onto the flat surface. She gazed at the few items, sealed in evidence bags and struggled to remain calm despite the sick sensation in her stomach.

A green marble, half of a belt with a buckle that she knew had once been silver… With shaking hands, she pulled the belt from the plastic bag and held it, smoothing her fingers over the dolphin upon it.

She remembered it so clearly. Her mother smiling down at her, wearing the belt Brennan now held in her hands. She couldn't hold back the sob that rose in her throat, and her tears spilled hotly over cheeks.

 _This shouldn't be so shocking,_ she chided herself. _I knew that she must've…_ But Brennan couldn't bring herself to even think the word. Her chest ached painfully, and she couldn't stop staring at the belt.

Booth had waited long enough, he decided, pacing back into the lab irritably and asking the first set of squints he encountered if they knew where his partner was. Angela, Zack, and Goodman were gathered around the Angelator-which struck him as odd, considering it was powered off.

"Any of you seen Bones? We're due in court, like... _now_ ," he complained, glancing at his watch. The three of them looked back at him in a way that confused him, and he couldn't help but ask, "What?"

"This…" Angela began, pulling up her reconstruction, "totally freaked her out."

 _Oh no,_ he thought desperately. A heavy feeling settled upon him as he opened his phone to dial the prosecutor.

"Yeah, you're gonna want to take Dr. Brennan off the witness list today. No. She can't make it to court." Booth snapped his phone shut and met Angela's eyes briefly. He didn't know what she saw in his expression, but hers became even more concerned.

"Alright. What's going on?" she begged.

"That...is Christine Brennan. You just found Bones' mother."

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Brennan didn't notice him standing in her office doorway at first. Her vision was clouded by her tears, and the lump in her throat had become painful.

"Bones…" his voice pulled her out of her devastated musings, and she heard the aching tenderness and compassion in his tone.

"I have to miss court," she answered vaguely.

"I know." He crossed the room slowly as she went on.

"I remember this belt buckle. I borrowed it without asking, first day of high school." She sniffled quietly. "My father had it specially made for my mother because she loved dolphins." Booth pulled a chair around to sit next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders and allowing her to lean into him.

"Bones… I'm _so_ sorry." Seeing her cry was physically painful, and he felt powerless, not knowing the right thing to say or do. Phrases like ' _She's in a better place now'_ wouldn't comfort her. She didn't believe in an afterlife.

"I always knew that for my parents to disappear like that, they… They had to be dead." She choked a little on the word. "I thought when it was confirmed, I'd feel relief, but…" Booth kissed the top of her head and nodded.

"It's still bad news."

Brennan's attention was drawn to the appearance of Zack, standing in her office doorway, and she sat up. Booth did not remove his arm.

"You have the file, Zack?"

"Jane Doe 129-0998."

"Where was she found?" Brennan asked, struggling to swallow back her emotion. Booth began to suggest that maybe she should just let the rest of the team handle this one, but she ignored him. "What does it say?"

"In September of 1998, a grave-digging crew at the Sunset Memory Cemetery in Salisbury, Pennsylvania uncovered human remains in a completely advanced stage of decomposition," he read aloud from the file in his hand.

"Is it from a grave?" Booth asked.

"No. It appears that somebody just dug a hole at the edge of the cemetery and...plopped the body in there."

" _Zack."_ Booth cursed inwardly at the kid's bluntness.

"Sorry," he said vaguely, going back to read from the file. "The local coroner found no obvious evidence of foul play and sent the remains, a few artifacts, and soil samples to the Jeffersonian, hoping we could identify her." He looked up from the file then and said, "Technically, your mother's been here as long as you have."

Brennan shuddered and sucked in a deep breath.

"Zack!" Booth admonished.

"Sorry, but they both got here in 1998."

Brennan was spared from having to come up with a response by the appearance of Dr. Goodman.

"Dr. Brennan. Miss Montenegro has volunteered to drive you home."

"I'm not going home," she answered calmly, looking back at the dolphin belt buckle she still held in her hands. Goodman and Zack retreated slightly, apparently deciding that Booth could handle this one.

"Temperance."

She looked up tearfully at Booth's use of her given name and shook her head.

"Please. The rest of the team will handle this one." But she continued to shake her head in such small, rapid movements that Booth wasn't sure she was even knew she was doing it. "I can call you with updates if-"

"Booth, it's nine in the morning; I'm _not_ going home," she snapped. Her eyes flashed at him briefly, warning him not to force the issue, but they softened in regret a moment later. "I'm sorry, I just… I can't go home and just do nothing. I need _answers_."

"And we'll get them. I promise, Bones." Booth glanced at the doorway to see that the other two men had vanished, got up from his chair, and extended a hand toward her to pull her to her feet. He took it as a good sign that she followed him willingly to the couch, and his gratitude increased when she allowed him to pull her onto his lap. Brennan sat sideways with her legs draped over his, and she laid her head against his shoulder as he gently smoothed the material of her dress around her knees.

Brennan still held onto the belt buckle, running her fingers over the surface that had once felt smooth and polished. Booth's arms surrounded her, and she closed her eyes against another flux of tears which threatened to spill over.

"Look… If you want to stay here, I'm not going to stop you. I understand why you feel like you need to be here," he told her softly. "I can stay with you and work from here, if you want… Or if you feel like maybe you need some time alone to process, I can give you that too. Whatever you need, you'll have it." He turned his head to kiss her forehead gently, hoping that she wouldn't close up on him entirely.

"What I need is answers. I need to know what happened to her. It's easier for you to work out of your office… You can track things down more easily from there, right?" Booth sighed and nodded slightly, and she continued. "Then do that. I'll try to stay out of the way here, but I'm not leaving." Brennan felt that a little alone time might not be a bad thing either but didn't say so out loud.

"Okay, baby. Do you want me to bring lunch later?"

"No, I really don't think I'd be able to hold anything down. I feel rather ill," she answered quietly.

"Alright, but you _are_ going to eat dinner. We can stop and get something from Sid that's easy on your stomach, okay?" She nodded and pressed a long kiss against his neck.

"Thank you."

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 **In case it's not obvious with these last couple of scenes, this episode will be _thoroughly_ covered. Most of the scenes will be written, plus additional ones as we go. I expect the resolution to take longer than the one to one and a half chapters most episodes have taken. Then we get to the really AU stuff. Fun!**

 **Reviews make me smile!**


	26. Chapter 26

**We're gearing up for the end! I'm not sure if this will be three or four more chapters yet, but I'm hoping to finish the final scenes this weekend. Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews last chapter, you guys are the best! Hope you like this one just as much. :)**

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Chapter 26

Booth grimly acknowledged to himself that this was the break he'd been needing in order to get anywhere with his investigation into her parents' disappearance. There hadn't been evidence of _anything_ , and therefore there had been no just cause to open a federal case. _Until now_.

He delegated a few miscellaneous tasks to several junior agents, making the most of his resources now that he had an open case which allowed him to do so. Booth refocused his efforts on digging into the Brennans' pasts, going as far back as he could. The information was spotty in places, but he did manage to discover that Christine Brennan had been a witness for the prosecution on tax evasion charges more than once. That information was something he hadn't been able to access without cause for digging through the old records- _cause_ being an official case.

She'd been a bookkeeper who had helped to blow the whistle on some clients, and Booth thought it was a reasonable motive for murder or at least harassment. He knew that the squints hadn't found cause of death yet, and he could hear Brennan's voice in his head telling him not to jump to conclusions. So he shifted his focus to the family car, and a few phone calls later, it was on its way to the FBI.

Booth glanced at the clock so many times throughout the day that if someone had been watching him, they might've wondered if he had an involuntary tic. He texted Angela for the third time to request an update on Brennan. Angela had agreed to keep an eye on her and report back to Booth if it seemed like she was coming apart. But she wasn't, at least not outwardly. Angela texted back to say that Brennan was still in her office, typing like a madwoman on her laptop. She didn't know what Brennan was writing, but she'd been at it for hours.

Booth sighed and pursed his lips, knowing exactly what his girlfriend was doing. He'd seen her behave much the same way as she had tried to compartmentalize her near-death experience at the hands of Jamie Kenton. She may have just handed in her manuscript, but he was certain that she was now working on her _third_ book. She never acknowledged it, but Booth had noticed that she had a tendency to disappear into her writing when her reality became too intense for her. It was similar to the way she liked to hide out in Bone Storage as a way to avoid difficult conversations or circumstances. However, he knew that 'Limbo' wasn't a viable option for her today. Not only would she be reminded that her mother had been down there with her all along, but she probably doubted her ability to focus on something as important to her as a case.

It was a few more hours before Booth finally allowed himself to call it a day and head back to the lab. He'd been fighting the urge to check on her himself for most of the day. He texted Brennan to let her know that he was on his way to pick her up, and he called in a to-go order on the way to the lab. He didn't go into detail with Sid, but Booth requested something that would be comforting and easy on her stomach, telling his old friend that Brennan was having a particularly bad day.

As he locked his car and walked quickly toward the lab, Booth found himself hoping that he wouldn't have to work too hard to get her to come home with him. He knew that while the lab was no longer the place she considered _home_ , it was still her house of reason.

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Brennan had indeed started a third novel, and she had punched her fingers rapidly into the keyboard for hours, laying out an intricate plot involving a serial killer who hunted bureaucrats. Beyond her office door, her squints worked diligently to piece together the details of her mother's death, and Brennan forced herself not to leave the office. She wanted to work the case, but she felt emotionally unstable, which was something that she couldn't allow in the workplace. They hadn't been wrong to try to get her to go home, but Brennan couldn't bear the thought of pacing around her apartment or Booth's simply...waiting. She would've gone insane.

A light knock sounded at her door, and she took a deep breath, expecting it to be Angela, checking up on her again. She didn't look up from her computer screen before she spoke.

"Angela, I'm fine. I was fine an hour ago, and I'm still fine. Tell Booth to relax."

"Yeah, I agree. You sound totally fine," Booth answered. Her eyes snapped up from her laptop, and she turned quickly to look at him.

"Sorry. It's just that she's been hovering all day, and I figured it was because you must've asked her to."

Booth flushed a little but admitted nothing.

"Ready to go? I called Sid, he's gonna have something good waiting for us," he told her, testing out a charm smile. Brennan hesitated a moment before returning a reluctant smile of her own.

"Yes, just a moment." Booth watched as she saved her document and enabled the password protection, confirming for him that he'd been correct about what she was writing. He helped gather her things and pulled her into a hug before they left the office. She returned it gratefully, realizing that although she had thought she wanted time alone that day, she really had missed his presence.

They left the lab hand in hand, passing the squints without a word, though Brennan did notice that no one seemed to be winding things down for the evening. Booth spotted Angela watching them from her office window, and he covertly mouthed a 'thank you' in her direction. She nodded back and gave him a sad smile.

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Brennan remained silent on the drive home and stayed in the car while Booth ran in to get their food from Sid. She was torn between wanting to know what progress he'd been able to make that day and an almost equal desire to maintain her emotional status quo. She wasn't sure how much more she could handle in one day.

Booth locked her front door behind them and carried their food to the table while Brennan retrieved one of his beers out of her fridge and poured herself a glass of wine. She changed into her pajamas and tied one of her silk robes around her before joining him. Once they were seated, Brennan pulled in a fortifying breath and asked the question.

"Were you able to find anything today?"

Booth's hand slowed almost imperceptibly as he brought a forkful of noodles to his mouth, and he nodded, eyeing her warily. She had never asked him about his progress with her parents' file since she'd given it to him after the woodchipper case, and he knew that there could be no more holding back.

"Yeah, but… there's more to it than that. After you gave me your parents' missing persons file, I did some poking around."

"You worked on it?" Her surprise caught him off guard. _Had she not actually expected him to?_

"Of course. Granted, there hasn't been a lot of time, and even if there had been, there wasn't much I could do. There was no evidence, no clear jurisdiction." He leaned back in his seat as she nodded, looking disappointed. Booth sighed and continued, "Listen, Bones. Finding your mother's remains means that I can open an official FBI case. I mean, for the first time, a _real investigation_ can occur."

Brennan sipped her wine and nodded, thinking back to the last time she'd seen her parents, waving goodbye cheerfully as they left to do their last minute holiday shopping.

"Three days after my parents disappeared, they found our car at a rest stop a thousand miles from where we lived in Chicago."

"Yeah," he nodded, "I found it in a federal impound lot in Jersey. I'm having it trucked to the FBI."

"They kept it all those years?"

"Well, nobody claimed it," he reasoned. He opened the file he'd brought home and glanced over it briefly as he ate. "Your father was a high school science teacher. He had no trouble with anyone at work. And then your mother… that's a different matter," he said hesitantly.

"She was a bookkeeper," Brennan replied, unsure as to why anyone would have trouble with her mother at work or anywhere else.

"She was a witness for the prosecution. Twice, on evasion charges. That gives motive." He closed the file again and took a drink of his beer before continuing. "Then there's uh...your brother."

"Russ. The brother who deserted me." Booth gazed at her and felt a pang of regret. It was the first time he'd heard her say it so plainly.

"He's on parole. He ran a chop shop processing stolen cars for parts."

"Figures," Brennan replied, shaking her head ruefully.

"He thinks that you blame him for your parents' disappearance," Booth said quietly, hating the look of shock on her face as she processed his words.

"You _talked_ to Russ?" Her tone was almost icy.

"I called him. Just asked him a few routine questions. He didn't give me much." At the moment, Booth wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. "Look, I didn't intend to keep it from you or anything, it was just...the conversation didn't get me anywhere, you know? I figured that I'd bring it all up with you when I had something to tell. The last thing I wanted to give you was another dead end."

Brennan understood his logic and did her best not to feel betrayed. _I'm the one who asked him to look into it,_ she chided herself. _Of course he would've talked to Russ…_ It wasn't that Brennan had forgotten about giving him the file, but she had formed a pattern over the years of _not_ thinking about her family. It simply hadn't been on her mind. Now, however, she found herself appreciating the fact that he'd followed through.

"I understand, Booth. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I'm not grateful for the fact that you tried. I just hadn't really thought about it since I gave you the file. When did you even find time to work on it? Our caseload has been almost non-stop for months."

"I managed. I'm sorry I couldn't find more." His brown eyes were shining with compassion, and she was struck yet again by how lucky she was to have him. She couldn't imagine trying to go through this alone.

"Thank you," Brennan replied simply. Booth reached across the table to hold her hand.

"Any time."

She could read the sincerity in his expression and smiled in spite of the ache in her heart. After they had finished their meals and moved to the living room, Brennan surprised him by settling herself on his lap in much the same position she'd been in earlier that day in her office. Booth certainly wasn't complaining; he wanted nothing more than to make her pain more bearable. He'd give her whatever she needed.

"I love you, baby. I'm so sorry this is happening."

Brennan pulled back a little in his arms so that she could see his face, and she closed her eyes appreciatively when he brought his palm gently to her cheek.

"I love you too. I'll be okay… I always knew she was probably dead. That both of them were...even if it's only my mother's remains that were found. I expected to find them together though, I guess. I'm not sure if it would've been a comfort or just made things even harder."

"I know that you didn't expect to find her alive, but…I really hoped that we would, that maybe I would be able to give you that."

Brennan placed a lingering kiss to his jaw and smiled sadly at him, amazed once more by the strength of his heart. Booth's arms tightened around her a little, allowing her to press herself closer against his chest, and they shared a mutual sigh of contentment.

When he finally convinced her to get some sleep, he curled around her in bed and wished that they could stay right there until the whole thing was over. Booth was fairly certain that things were going to get worse before they got better, but he knew she was strong. He just had to keep her from disappearing behind those walls he'd been working to tear down.

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Booth walked into the lab the following morning scarcely an hour after he'd dropped her off. A couple of his agents had gotten back to him with some new details, and he'd tracked the lead down a rabbit hole he hadn't anticipated. He dreaded telling her what he'd found, but there was no way around it.

He could hear her voice carry over the stone floor before he saw her.

"No, _seven_ years. It should be seven years."

"I'm still going through soil samples, but something in there might allow me to be more specific," Hodgins answered, sounding uncomfortable.

"She was buried near Christmas, 1991," Brennan insisted. Booth rounded the corner and spotted her standing with Zack and Hodgins at one of the workstations near the platform.

"I need the room guys," he told them, inhaling slowly to steady himself. Each of them said something flippant before they left, but Booth wasn't listening. He was studying his partner's expression, unsure as to how she would handle his news.

"What?" she asked nervously.

"When you first gave me the file on your parents, I...I looked back into their lives three to four years before they disappeared. Jobs, friends…"

"Okay…"

"I looked back a little further, and I found that...Christine Brennan didn't exist before 1978," he told her cautiously. Brennan's features registered only confusion, and he could see that she wasn't following.

"What are you telling me? That...that this woman isn't my mother? I was born in 1976. Obviously, my mother existed."

"Do you know the most common way of creating an identity?" She hesitated a moment before answering.

"Getting the birth certificate of someone deceased who was born the same year as you were...and take over that identity."

"I found one, a Matthew Brennan. Born and died 1948," he replied, wincing at the look of disbelief on her face as she processed his words. "Do you understand?"

"I don't know what it means. I don't know what _any of it_ means."

"It means your parents weren't…who you thought they were," he explained sadly. "It means that they were living under...assumed identities."

Brennan turned away from him and heaved a sigh of frustration, not knowing how to respond to the information. Booth stepped behind her and slipped an arm around her waist. She stiffened at the contact a little but then relaxed against him slightly, accepting the comfort he was offering. Brennan moved to grasp the hand at her abdomen, stepping away from him and turning around.

"Thank you for telling me. Was there anything else?" she asked, her expression controlled.

"Not yet, Bones."

"Okay. You'll let me know when there is?"

"Of course…" Booth set his jaw and sighed, realizing that she was intentionally pulling back. "I'm sorry, Bones."

"Thank you. I need to get back to work… I'll see you later?"

"Yeah, okay. Call me if you need anything, alright?" She nodded her assent and walked away toward her office. Booth stood there for another few moments, feeling at odds with the situation. He knew that she wanted to be alone, but he wasn't sure where that left him. Booth recalled the previous week, when she had offered the time and space he'd thought he needed in order to cope with his reactions to their case. It hadn't been what she'd wanted, but she had been willing to give him what he'd thought was best in that moment.

He supposed he owed her the same now, no matter how uneasy it made him.

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Angela texted Booth shortly before noon to assure him that she had talked Brennan into eating lunch, and he replied with his thanks. He was still waiting on a few database searches finish up as well as a few phone calls to be returned. When his phone buzzed again not long after lunch, his spirits lifted a little to see Brennan's name on his phone, but he was quickly disheartened by her text.

' _Ange won't leave me alone. Taking cab home. See you tonight.'_

He sent a quick acknowledgment and weighed his options. The investigation needed more help, and it made sense to Booth that Russ should be included. After all, they had been his parents as well. Booth would do his best to subdue the dislike he felt for the man at least long enough to get the case solved, but first he had to get him to DC.

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Brennan was irritated. She loved Angela a lot, but she'd reached her limit with the constant hovering. So she decided to placate her friend by eating lunch with her...and then she left. Brennan texted Booth quickly to let him know she was leaving, phrasing it strategically to let him know that she wanted some peace, and she was grateful that his reply was a simple ' _Okay, love you.'_

When she arrived home, she sat down and tried to work on her new book for a while, but the results were poor. Brennan set her laptop aside for the time being and tried to focus on compartmentalizing. It took her a few minutes of reflection to realize that what she was feeling was _anger_.

She was angry that her mother was dead, even if it was completely irrational because she had always assumed that to be the case. She was angry that so much of the case was murky and confusing. She was angry that she now seemed to have even fewer answers than before and far too many questions.

And the worst of it was her anger that everything she knew about her parents and her childhood appeared to have been a lie. If her parents weren't who they'd claimed to be, then _who was she_?

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Booth decided to bite the bullet and make a trip to see Russ. His parole officer, Ms. Davis, had given Booth the address of Russ's current job, and he texted Brennan to let her know that he would be a bit late getting home. He would give her as much time and space as she wanted, but there was no way he was voluntarily sleeping anywhere but right next to her that night.

When he arrived at the small seaside carnival, the ticket booth attendant told him where to find Russ, and he overheard the man arguing with his boss as he approached.

"You licensed for this job?" Booth asked from the railing, watching Russ attempt to fix a broken down ferris wheel. Brennan's brother glanced at him briefly and made a quick assessment.

"You're a cop." It was a statement, not a question.

"You know who recognizes cops?"

"Other cops?"

"And crooks. I talked to you a couple of months ago on the phone. I'm Booth." Russ closed the electrical panel on the ride and narrowed his eyes.

"You gonna ask me some more questions about my childhood?" he mocked. Booth didn't answer but held up a photograph of Angela's reconstruction. Russ's expression became grim as he crossed over to the metal fence where Booth stood. "You found my mother?" he asked, taking the photograph from Booth.

"Your sister did the ID."

"What about Dad?"

"No," Booth replied simply. Russ contemplated him for a moment before handing the picture back.

"What do you want?"

"Do you remember being anyone else besides uh...Russ Brennan?" Booth asked casually.

"Nope."

"You wouldn't lie to me, would you Russ?"

"Cops always think I'm lying," Russ replied with forced humor. Booth laughed along with him but was undeceived. He knew full well that the man was lying, but what really intrigued him was the question of why.

"I want you to come back to DC and help out in this investigation."

"I got a job, man."

"You know, the alternative is I just cite you for performing unlicensed repairs on heavy equipment...get your parole revoked," he said lightly. Russ sighed and rolled his eyes in a gesture Booth recognized. "Tell you what. You give me a call when you get into town." He held up a business card and wedged it in the railing.

As he drove back to DC, he found himself remembering Brennan's tendency toward blackmail when it came to negotiation, and he grinned at the thought that she would probably approve of his using a similar tactic to get Russ's help.

When he finally got to her apartment, it was nearly ten, and Booth hoped that she would let him stay. He unlocked the door with his key and slipped inside, surprised to see that the were lights off.

"Booth?" she called from the bedroom.

"Yeah, it's me." She didn't reply, and he assumed that the sound of the front door opening had alarmed her. He kicked his shoes off and tossed his keys in the bowl before heading toward the bedroom. The lamp was on, and she'd been reading. Brennan didn't speak again until he had gotten himself ready for bed and climbed under the blanket next to her.

"I wasn't sure you were coming over," she admitted softly, putting her book on the nightstand. Booth looked at her in surprise, and his forehead creased.

"Is it…okay that I'm here?" he asked nervously.

"Of course," she answered quickly. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well...you wanted some time to yourself, and I get that. If that's really what you need, that's fine, Bones. I just didn't know if it applied to our...sleeping arrangements," he explained with a hesitant smile. Brennan returned it and snuggled herself into his arms.

"No, I don't want to sleep alone. Thank you for giving me time today. I'm sorry if hurt your feelings somehow…" Brennan was uncertain how to read his expression. He seemed to be forcing his smiles a little.

"You didn't hurt my feelings, baby. I know that you need time to process everything, and I'm perfectly okay with that. But… don't pull away too much, okay? A sexy genius I know recently told me to _let her be there for me_. It was good advice." He grinned in relief when she gave him a real smile.

"I love you," she said, leaning in for a kiss. Their lips connected, moving almost lazily against one another for several moments.

"I love you too, Bones." Booth moved his hand in soothing patterns on her back, allowing himself to be comforted by her presence as well. "Do you… do you want to talk about any of it? You look like maybe you've worked some things out today."

"I don't know. I think I'm just angry."

"Angry?" That hadn't been what he'd expected.

"Yes. At my parents, at Russ, at...the whole situation. If my parents were pretending to be other people, then who were they to begin with? You said they were using assumed names…and that means mine is too. I don't even know my real name."

"We'll figure it out, Bones. I swear we will. I'm not giving up, and I know you won't either. But, as far as the name thing…I talked to someone tonight who should be able to help us with that."

She gazed at him in confusion and finally determined what it was in his expression that she'd been unable to identify before. _Guilt_.

"You're talking about Russ?" she asked. Booth nodded apologetically.

"Yeah, I went to see him. That's where I was. Told him that we needed his help to figure out what really happened," he explained. Brennan chewed her lip subtly.

"Did he agree?"

"He didn't say _no_ … I'm sure we'll hear from him."

She contemplated the advisability of including her brother-who was a felon-in an FBI investigation. They didn't have cause of death yet, but if it turned out to be murder, then her brother's involvement could be problematic.

"Are you upset that I talked to him?" Booth asked, misinterpreting her pensive silence for anger.

"No," she answered, startled out of her thoughts. "I know it's a logical direction for the investigation. Besides myself, he's the only one who knew my parents back then. It makes sense for him to help; I was just hoping that his record doesn't prove problematic if this turns out to be a murder. That's all."

Booth's expression cleared, and he nodded. He'd thought of that too, but it was a risk they had to take. They talked for a little while longer before their exhaustion got the better of them, and they slept dreamlessly in one another's arms.

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On Wednesday morning, Brennan finally felt emotionally stable enough to analyze her mother's remains. Zack had been having a hard time determining cause of death, and she knew that it was wrong to have left him with the burden of doing the analysis on his own.

As she studied the bones of her mother's skull, she couldn't help but remember her face. Brennan was surprised that she hadn't seen it right away when she'd first checked Zack's work with the tissue markers.

"Dr. Brennan?" She stood up quickly, working to maintain her composure, and answered Hodgins. Angela was stepping onto the platform behind him.

"Yes… Did you find anything in the soil?"

"Yeah… This was in the soil samples from your mother's remains," he said, gesturing to a workstation computer screen. He pulled up an image of a faded movie ticket stub.

"A movie ticket?" Brennan asked, narrowing her eyes in confusion.

"Rialto Theater. Nine pm showing of ' _The Fugitive.'_ September 22, 1993," Angela told her calmly.

"Well, how'd it get there?" she asked, nonplussed.

"Either your mother had it in her possession when she was buried, or it was somehow buried with her," Hodgins explained gently.

"Either way it...dates the burial," Angela added.

"No, that's...that's impossible. My mother disappeared in 1991," she insisted. Angela and Hodgins looked at each other uncomfortably.

"Sweetie-"

"It's possible Mom was buried somewhere else for a year and a half, then moved."

"No," Hodgins denied evenly. "That's not possible."

"Maybe it is," Angela said, communicating silently with Hodgins.

"We _decided_ to tell you the truth," he said firmly. "And this is the truth."

Brennan did her best to keep her expression neutral and turned away to resume her examination of the skull. Her mind was screaming a hundred questions that she didn't want to answer at the moment, and she forced herself to focus on the work, flipping the skull upside down in her hands to look at the interior.

"You alright?" Angela asked, moving to stand in front of her on the other side of the table. Brennan avoided the redundant question. _Of course I'm not alright,_ she thought. But when she glimpsed the inside of the skull, her pulse quickened.

"I'm pretty sure I just found cause of death. Zack?"

"Yes, Dr. Brennan."

"See the discoloration on the inside of the skull?" She turned it toward him and handed it over. As Zack aimed his penlight into the skull cavity, Brennan was distracted by the appearance of two men passing through the glass doors. She nearly always noticed when Booth arrived, regardless of what she might be doing, but this time he wasn't alone.

Her mind flashed back for just a moment to happier times, when her brother had been one of her favorite people in the world, someone she could depend on. Though Booth had told her Russ might show up, the warning didn't prepare her for the anger that rose up at the sight of him.

"Dr. Brennan?" Her attention snapped back to her assistant.

"Probably fatal," she concluded, willing her mind to focus.

"There are no indications of a blow to the outer skull."

"Scan the outside of the skull. Look for histological changes, microscopic remodeling." Booth and Russ were climbing the platform, and she rose from her seat to flee. "I _don't_ want to talk to him," she told Booth in a low whisper. Brennan brushed past her brother without looking at him and retreated to her office. She could hear Booth instructing Zack to make sure Russ stayed put, and he caught up with her before she reached her office doorway.

"Bones… come on." She rounded on him, trying her best to maintain control.

"My mother died of a subdural hematoma. Bleeding in the brain."

"You want to proceed rationally, correct?" he asked, choosing words that he knew she understood. Her eyes were glistening as she continued.

"Chances are, the subdural hematoma was caused by a blow to the head."

"Great, you got the _how_ ," he said encouragingly. "Now let's get the _who_." She pursed her lips, and he could see that she was struggling. "You just told me that your mother was _murdered_. I mean, who better to help us than...than your brother?"

She deliberated, glancing at Russ who still stood on the platform, watching her with a pained expression. She turned and entered her office, Booth on her heels.

"I know you're angry at him, and you have every right to be. I'm angry at him too."

This confused her, and she felt her frustration level rising. There had been nothing _but_ confusion for days, and confusion wasn't something Temperance Brennan as accustomed to.

"Why are _you_ mad at him?"

"Seriously?" he asked, incredulous. "The guy abandoned you, left you on your own with a bunch of strangers, some of whom abused you. I may never forgive him for that. But…he can still help solve the case, Bones. You want answers, and he can help us get them."

Brennan had remained silent during his speech and was a little stunned at his enmity toward her brother. Finally, she nodded, feeling that if Booth could tolerate her brother's presence, then she should at least give it a try.

"Thanks, Bones."

She moved to stand behind her desk as Booth went to get Russ. He didn't return with her brother, however, and she wished that he had. Russ hesitated in the doorway for a moment before entering, and she avoided eye contact for a little while.

He spotted the items from the artifact bag laying on the table and went immediately for the belt.

"Mom did love dolphins," he said ruefully, examining the rusted buckle. "This was mine! My favorite marble," he announced, holding it up to the light. "What was she doing with that?"

"Where did Booth find you?" Brennan asked, keeping her expression guarded.

"It's not hard for an FBI Agent to find a parolee."

"I didn't ask how, I asked _where_."

"Morehead City, North Carolina." When she didn't reply, he walked slowly toward her desk. "I call every year, on your birthday. You never pick up."

"Take a hint," she replied icily. Russ looked like he wanted to say something else but seemed to change direction at the last minute.

"Can I have this?" he asked, holding up the marble.

"It's evidence," she said, shaking her head.

"Of what? It's a kid's marble."

"It's the rules. I can't let you have it."

Russ pursed his lips and handed it back to her with rueful smile.

"Same old Tempe. Never met a rule worth breaking."

"Same old Russ," she sniped back. "On parole."

He looked chagrined but didn't respond, and a moment later Booth was in the doorway again.

"The family car just arrived, Bones. The techs are getting ready to take it apart." Booth wasn't entirely sure what he'd walked into, but the tension in the room was palpable. Brennan looked up at him and nodded, grateful that he was back and offered a distraction. However, she frowned when she noticed that Russ was following to tag along. Brennan gritted her teeth against the urge to tell him to go back to wherever he came from, but at that precise moment, she felt Booth's hand on the small of her back. He was supporting her wordlessly, as he so often did, and her gratitude for his comfort was immeasurable.

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The silence in the SUV was intensely uncomfortable. They didn't generally have anyone other than Parker in the back seat, unless it was someone they were bringing in for questioning. Before he'd gotten the call about the car, he'd been telling Angela that he intended to send Russ to talk to her and describe someone for her to sketch. Something or someone had clearly spooked Brennan's parents more than once. It had been enough for them to change their identities, and if _he_ had been in their shoes, he would've told his son who to watch out for. Russ had been just a couple of years older than Parker at the time, and Booth hoped that he would remember.

Russ's thoughts were on his sister. Over the years, he had replayed the events of that Christmas in his mind again and again. He understood why she was angry with him, or at least he thought he did. But the truth was that he really had done what he'd thought was best for her at the time. She hadn't spoken to him since-until today. For the longest time, Russ thought that she most likely blamed him for their parents leaving, as though he might have done something to anger them, but he realized now that she was holding something else over him. He just didn't know what it was yet.

He was vaguely curious about her relationship with her FBI partner, but he knew that even an innocent question would earn a disparaging response from his sister. At the very least, they seemed to be extremely close.

The trio arrived at their destination and found a crew of forensic techs beginning to dismantle the Brennans' former vehicle. Booth instructed the techs to treat it like a fresh crime scene. One of the junior agents had left a casefile on a table near the car, and Booth glanced through it, realizing it was the results of the NCIC database search he had requested.

"That's our old car, alright," Russ confirmed as they got nearer to it.

"The name of my school is scraped off. Woodside Elementary," Brennan noted, drawing their attention to a partially shredded bumper sticker declaring her to have been an honor student. _No surprise there._ "They said they didn't find anything in the car." Booth knew that she was referring to the information in the missing persons file.

"There was a bloodstain. Front seat, passenger side," Booth answered distractedly as he read the file a little more carefully. _Shit,_ he thought. _This is bad._ _Bank robbers?_ He whistled loudly through his fingers and requested that the surrounding techs give them some privacy. He continued to stare down at the file. _Joy. Her name had been Joy._

"Twice in two days," Brennan commented nervously.

"I had the NCIC database checked for a married couple who disappeared in 1978," Booth replied, dreading her reaction to what his guys had uncovered. He handed Brennan the photos and continued, "Meet Max and Ruth Keenan." Brennan took the photos, scowling in confusion.

"That's mom and dad, alright," Russ agreed, looking sideways at the pictures.

"The NCIC database, that's...that's criminals." She shook her head as though not able to believe her own words. "My parents were on the list of federal offenders?"

"How do you like that?" Russ joked. "I guess a criminal nature runs in the family." Brennan's anger flared, and she snatched another photograph from the file in Booth's hands. It was a picture of her at two years old, pretending to drive their car while Russ stood outside the window. She pushed it into her brother's face.

"You were _seven_ _years old_ , Russ. Old enough to remember. What... _What is your real name?_ What is _my_ real name?"

"Bones, it's right here in the file," Booth interrupted gently.

"No! No. I want him to tell me. What is my real name, Russ?" Her eyes were filling with tears as she watched his expression shift to resignation.

"My name was Kyle. Your name was Joy."

Brennan felt her face flush with emotion, and her tears spilled over.

" _You_ are not my brother," she told him, shaking her head before raising a hand to slap him hard across the face.

"Bones…"

"No! He lied about that!" She turned back to Russ. "What _else_ are you lying about? What else are you not telling us?" Brennan stormed off in the direction of the SUV, and Booth followed far enough behind her that she had some space while staying close enough to make sure she didn't try to take off on her own when she was so upset. He didn't make eye contact with Russ.

Booth let her sit in the car alone for a few minutes before he motioned to Russ that they should join her. He wanted to reach over the console and hold her hand, but she had her arms folded tightly across her chest. She wore a devastated expression, and Booth's chest ached to see it. She looked so young when she was emotional like this. Like a little girl who had lost everything, because that's exactly what she had been.

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Max Keenan was hiding out in the parking structure of the Jeffersonian, keeping an eye out for the black sedan that had been staking out his daughter's home and work over the past few weeks. He couldn't seem to nail down a pattern. Peter St. James seemed to show up at various times, remaining in place for various intervals. He never parked in the same place, and he always appeared to be writing something down. Max had felt a sick kind of foreboding when he'd noticed the inconsistent pattern of behavior.

To say that Max was surprised to see his son exit Booth's SUV would be an understatement. He was floored. Russ was supposed to be in North Carolina, working his thankless job and doing his best for his family. Not here.

His mind raced with the possibilities. Under different circumstances, he would've been touched and thrilled to see his children together, but he knew that for the status quo to have changed, there had to have been a catalyst. It didn't take much observation to conclude that this was not a happy reunion by any means. Tempe's expression was a familiar mix of sulkiness and betrayal, and her movements were so stiff that she almost seemed to be in pain.

Russ looked no better, guilt-ridden and angsty. Max was glad that at least he had not lost his knowledge of his children's expressions in the years that had passed. As the three of them walked away from the car, they passed very near to his own, and the sliver of conversation he overheard stunned him even more than Russ's sudden appearance.

"Look, I'm tracking down the agent that was assigned to your parents' case back then, alright? It was a lady named Warner, and I think she's actually in DC now. I'll get a meeting set up for this afternoon if possible, okay?"

Russ merely nodded at Booth's words, and Brennan didn't respond at all. Booth asked if she was alright, but his words faded as they left the garage, and Max lost sight of them.

 _Special Agent Warner_.

Max knew precisely who that was, and he cursed out loud in his exasperation. _What the hell were they getting into?_ If they knew about Warner, then they knew the true names of their family and perhaps why they had gone underground. Max struggled not to panic, recalling all too well the events that had led to their abandoning their identities and extended families in order to protect their family.

He pulled out of the space and left the garage, going through his mental list of contacts he could still trust in the area. He needed information.

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Russ had taken up residence in her office while they waited to hear back from Booth, and Brennan didn't trust herself not to hit him again if she spent too long in his company. He'd been lucky that she'd used an open palm. If she'd used her fist, he'd be in a lot more pain right now. She stood at the railing of the lounge, watching the other scientists go about business on the lower level and doing her best to come to terms with what she'd learned.

 _Her parents had abandoned her._ Even in her own mind, the words sounded wrong. Her parents had loved her, she'd had no reason to believe otherwise, but still...she couldn't wrap her mind around a scenario that would've forced them to simply disappear and leave their teenage children to fend for themselves. She wondered idly if they had thought that Russ would take care of her. If so, they couldn't have been more wrong.

Brennan remembered her shock as she'd watched Russ drive away, leaving her standing next to a social worker who was completely apathetic to her situation. She'd heard the woman talking to her brother, speaking words that had sounded overly rehearsed, and telling him that his little sister deserved a family who could take care of her...that she would be better off in foster care, at least until he could get on his feet. But Russ had never gotten 'on his feet,' and when he'd left her that day, she hadn't ever wanted to see or speak to him again.

She thought of Booth and his endless efforts to watch out for his younger brother, whether Jared deserved the help or not, and Brennan couldn't help but wonder why Russ couldn't have been more like that. She'd needed him. They'd needed _each other_ , really…and he hadn't let her be there for him either. She knew that she'd reacted badly that Christmas, but he'd known her personality. He'd known her better than anyone else, aside from their parents. How could he have just given up on her?

Brennan's thoughts continued to run in circles with no satisfactory resolution, and she was startled when Angela came to stand next to her and said her name.

"You okay, Sweetie?" Brennan stifled her typical 'I'm fine' and tried to give a real answer.

"At first, I thought the worst thing was that they were missing."

"Except 'dead' means no more hope," Angela supplied. Brennan shook her head; she'd lost any semblance of _hope_ quite a while ago.

"My mother was alive for almost two years after they disappeared. She abandoned me." The words tasted bitter in her mouth, and her eyes stung for the hundredth time since Monday morning. She was so tired of crying in front of people.

"You don't know that," Angela encouraged. "Look, you finally got to slap Russ. You've been wanting to do that for years."

Brennan smiled in spite of herself and shook her head affectionately at her friend.

"I worshiped him, you know?" She chuckled a little, remembering her brother at age nineteen. "God he was so _cool_. Everyone knew I was Russ Brennan's little sister. I wasn't cool _or_ pretty, so being his sister… You know that game Marco Polo?" Angela nodded. "I'd be sitting in class…and I'd hear out the window, 'Marco!' It'd be Russ, checking in on me and letting everyone know that I was his little sister."

"Did you…'Polo?'"

"Yeah, sometimes that'd be the only word I said all day… 'Polo.' And then mom and dad disappeared and Russ took off…" Her smile faded slowly. "Suddenly, no one cared where I was. I miss that. Someone caring where I am all the time."

Angela opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by Booth shouting from the lower level.

"Bones! Bones! You up there? Come on, let's go." He clapped his hands rhythmically. "Chop chop, I found the agent that was assigned to your parents' case." Brennan grinned down at him and realized that she'd misspoken.

"I _used_ to miss that," she corrected herself. Booth most definitely cared where she was all the time. Where she was, if she'd slept, if she'd eaten, if she was happy… He had always cared. He loved her.

And she loved him back.

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Booth, Brennan, and Russ gathered in Booth's office to meet with former Special Agent Warner. The woman was blonde and in her fifties with a sweet, maternal sort of quality, and she seemed fairly surprised to have been contacted and called in to the FBI for this type of meeting. She explained that she had been the FBI liaison on a bank robbery task force, working out of Cincinnati in the mid- to late seventies with several other agencies collaborating. They had been after a group of armed robbers working Ohio, Kentucky, and Iowa.

"You know, excuse me… Am I to understand that I'm addressing the _family_ of one of these robbers?" she asked incredulously. This was certainly a first.

"Max and Ruth Keenan's children," Booth replied. Ms. Warner's relaxed into a complacent expression.

"Max and Ruth… Yeah, they never really belonged in that crew."

"Why?" Brennan asked.

"They worked smart. Specialized in safety deposit boxes. No guns. They'd either con their way in or case out the place. Break back in on the weekend. Took their time. We never got a handle on the size of their scores."

"Why?" This time it was Russ who spoke up.

"Well, people keep jewelry and cash in safety deposit boxes," she explained.

"And a lot of stuff they don't want to report stolen," Booth added. Brennan continued to scowl as the woman went on.

"None of us understood why stand-up criminals like Max and Ruth would join the Midwest Strong Arm crew. Links to white supremacists, real dedication to firearms and violence…" At the words ' _stand-up criminals,'_ Brennan had felt an odd sensation as if the air had been pushed forcibly out of her lungs. "A job in Dayton went _really_ bad. Two innocent bystanders were killed, one state trooper. Seven wounded."

"When as that?" Booth asked.

"July 4th, 1978."

"Never caught them?" Russ prompted.

"Not us, no. A few years later, one of them turned state's evidence for an FBI Agent out of Louisville. Sent the rest to jail. My understanding is they're all dead."

"Our parents were bank robbers...who morphed into a high school science teacher and a bookkeeper?" Russ said disbelievingly. Brennan had to agree with his incredulity. It didn't seem possible.

"Their particular brand of safety deposit break-ins stopped. At the time, I figured the Strong Arm crew killed them for their cut," Ms. Warner replied.

They were interrupted then by one of the techs who had been processing the car, and their collective attention was diverted.

"Agent Booth, we found blood in the car."

"Well, we expected that," he answered tersely.

"Yeah, but here's the wrinkle: we got blood from two separate individuals."

"Send the results to the Jeffersonian, attention of Dr. Jack Hodgins." As the analyst departed, Booth redirected his attention to Ms. Warner. "I really appreciate you coming by, ma'am. Is it alright to call you if we have any further questions?"

"Of course. It was nice to have met you all," she told them. She stood and shook everyone's hands before leaving the room. Booth gazed at Brennan in concern, for once not able to read her expression. Usually her feelings were practically written on her face, at least as far as he was concerned anyway. It troubled him that he couldn't tell what was going on in her head at that moment.

"Listen, Bones… Let's grab a late lunch before I take you back to the lab, okay? We can pick up something from Sid's or the diner… I know you didn't eat yet."

Russ narrowed his eyes speculatively at Booth's words and watched his sister's reaction. She merely nodded and rose from her seat. He thought it odd that the agent had sounded like he was coaxing her into eating a meal, and didn't understand the look of relief that appeared on the man's face when she conceded either. He couldn't remember his sister ever refusing to eat, but perhaps that was a newer development.

Booth asked Russ what he liked and decided that diner food was probably the more logical choice. Once they'd picked up their meals, he drove them back to the lab and ate with them in the lounge. They were finishing up when Hodgins called them down to the platform to show them the DNA results that the Bureau had sent over.

The results showed that there were indeed two DNA charts from blood in the car. One of them belonged to Christine Brennan, and the other was an unknown male-definitely not their father. Booth told them that they would run the sample through CODIS and the Convicted Offender Index to see if a match could be found.

Angela called Russ into her office then, and Brennan watched him go, feeling a little bewildered at why her friend would want to speak to her brother.

"She's going to do a sketch off his description of someone he might remember from when he was a kid."

"Who?"

"I don't know, but… Your parents, they had a good reason to go into hiding, to completely change their lifestyles. I think Russ might remember someone who had spooked them, maybe threatened them. If I was in fear for Parker's life and yours, to the point that I thought it was necessary to hide, the first thing I'd do is make sure my son knew what the enemy looked like."

Brennan was taken aback by his logic, not expecting him to be comparing himself to her parents. She didn't like it, and she pulled him into her office quickly, shutting the door behind them.

"You're nothing like my parents. Don't compare yourself to them. Please."

Booth wasn't sure why her words were so resolved, but he nodded reassuringly.

"Okay, Bones."

She nodded her thanks at his simple acknowledgment and glanced back toward her office windows for a moment. Booth raised his brows a little as she began to close the blinds, and he moved to help her with the last one.

"Can we just sit for a while? Do you need to be back at your office yet, or…?"

"No, I can stay, Bones." He led her to the couch and pulled her onto his lap again. They sat quietly, simply enjoying the relief they felt to be holding each other, and after a little while, she spoke again.

"They abandoned us," she said brokenly. "I can't rationalize it… It doesn't make sense."

Booth hugged her tighter to his chest and threaded his fingers through her hair soothingly. She closed her eyes in appreciation.

"We _will_ find out, Bones. We'll figure out what happened and why. There's a story we don't know yet. You'll have your answers."

Brennan resisted her usual urge to contradict him with a dose of logic, realizing that she believed what he'd said. She trusted him not to give up on helping her get answers, no matter how long it took.

"Thank you."

"It's nothing, Bones. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I can't think of _anything_ that I wouldn't do for you." Brennan smiled into his shoulder, realizing that the same was true for her as well. All she wanted was for him to be happy and to be able to share his happiness with her.

They held each other for nearly an hour, and Brennan had been silent and still for so long that Booth thought she might've fallen asleep when his phone rang. She sat up immediately, looking perfectly alert and moved to sit next to him so that he could answer his call.

It was one of his junior agents checking in with an update, and he regretfully told Brennan that he needed to go back to the Hoover for a little while before people began to leave for the day. She assured him that it was perfectly fine, and they exchanged their I Love Yous before he left.

She watched him go with a half smile, thinking again how very lucky she was to have found him.

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Brennan laid awake for hours that night, alternating between watching the clock and watching Booth. Her mind refused to slow down, and around two in the morning, she finally gave up on the idea of sleep. She slipped carefully out of Booth's arms, redressed, left him a note, and drove to the lab.

It had been months since she'd been at work this late. In fact, she thought the last time had probably been Christmas: the night before she and Booth had made their romantic relationship official. Ever since then, he'd been making sure that she slept in a bed-usually with him.

When she arrived at the Jeffersonian, she was surprised to see that all of the lights were still on, and music was playing in Zack's office. She peeked through the doorway, intrigued, and sure enough, her assistant was perched on a stool in front of his computer.

"Dr. Brennan. Is it morning?" he asked when he spotted her.

"No, I couldn't sleep. Why are you still here?"

"We're all here," he replied. "No one's leaving until we figure out what happened to your mother."

"Thank you," she said softly, feeling her eyes tear up yet again.

"Don't thank me. I'm failing." Zack explained that he had gone over the skull in excruciatingly fine detail but had been unable to find any sign of remodeling. Brennan suggested that they look at the skull directly above the center of the hematoma under high magnification. At five hundred times, microscopic fractures of the osteons became visible, and Zack posited that he could map the fractured osteons to determine a weapon.

As he elaborated on his process, Brennan thought back to another woman whose death had also been caused by delayed brain trauma due to a subdural hematoma. Maria Duarte had walked away from the accident that had eventually sealed her demise, and she had refused medical treatment out of fear. Had the same been true for her mother? Booth was correct that there was indeed a story they didn't know yet. What would she have been afraid of?

Brennan stayed to help Zack get a decent start on the mapping, but after an hour or so, she realized that her fatigue was finally catching up with her. She retreated to her office couch and fell asleep in minutes, feeling reassured that the bones would help to tell the story. Like always.

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 **Let me know what you think and have a great weekend! :)**


	27. Chapter 27

**Hey ladies! (I'm assuming) Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews, I truly appreciate the time you take to give feedback.**

 **I spent most of yesterday afternoon and evening writing the final scenes of this story, and I'm almost done. There will be at least two more chapters after this one. Super-duper huge thanks to chosenname who proofread this chapter for me last night so that I could keep writing. :)**

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Chapter 27

Waking up to an empty bed and a note was not an ideal way to start the day, and Booth headed to the lab as soon as he was showered and dressed that morning. Her car was in the structure, and as he entered the lab, Zack told him that she had been in her office for the last few hours.

Booth relaxed considerably and decided to help himself to a cup of coffee before heading to her office. He rarely passed up an opportunity to indulge in the coffee at the lab; it was a million times better than the swill they provided at the Hoover.

Brennan was asleep on her couch beneath a fleece throw when he entered, and he watched her thoughtfully for a few moments, appreciating the gentle curve of her lips and the way her long lashes laid against her cheeks. If he could've had his way, he would stare at Brennan for hours at a time, memorizing every inch of her. However, he knew that she became uncomfortable when he studied her for too long, and the only time that he could really get his fill of looking at her was while she slept. It was in those moments that the sight of her made him physically ache with love for her, as if his heart simply couldn't contain it.

He crouched down next to her and stroked his fingertips through her hair tenderly, smiling as she began to stir. She opened her eyes and smiled a little when she saw him, reaching her hand toward him to rest against his cheek.

"Morning, beautiful."

"Morning. What time is it?" she asked, sitting up.

"Almost eight." He watched her yawn and stretch her back stiffly. "Aren't you the one who's always telling me how bad sleeping on a couch can be for your back?" he teased. She stuck out her tongue playfully in response, and he chuckled.

"Has there been any progress?" she inquired. Booth sighed at the subject change, wishing that they could enjoy being a couple just a little while longer before they refocused on the case, but he understood her dedication.

"Yeah. Caught a break on the DNA in the car."

"You know who it is?"

"Not exactly. See, it's a closed file. Whoever it is is in Witness Protection. I'll make a request, but they're pretty tight over there," he explained.

"What if you had a face?" Angela asked as she walked through the open doorway. She showed them a sketch of an average looking man.

"Who's that?" Brennan asked.

"Somebody your father pointed out to Russ when he was seven. Somebody he's still afraid of."

"Hey, know what? I'm gonna play hardball with Witness Protection," he said, straightening up and taking the sketch from Angela. "If they don't cooperate, I'm gonna put his face in the paper."

"Won't you get in trouble for that?" Brennan asked in concern. He didn't need to be taking risks like that for her.

"Well, we'll find out." He leaned over to kiss her swiftly and was gone from the room before she could argue with him.

"You know what? Sometimes, he is just...whew!" Angela said, fanning herself a little. Brennan smiled indulgently, assuming that she was talking about his take-charge behavior and didn't disagree.

' _Whew'_ pretty much summed it up.

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While Booth was handling the Witness Protection issue, Brennan and Angela reviewed the work Zack had done mapping the fractured osteons of her mother's skull.

"It suggests a blow from the front that grazed the skull," Angela noted.

"A bullet?" Brennan suggested.

"There would've been particulates left behind by a bullet," Hodgins said, joining them. "Especially fired from a short range."

"I isolated the most fractured osteons, and _this_ pattern emerges," Zack told them. He switched to a different image, and the new pattern looked like a small circle inside of a larger one.

"It looks like the business end of a tire iron," Hodgins posited.

"No, the size is wrong. Too small. The weapon was actually _chasing_ the skull when it landed. I believe that the victim was pulled away at the last second so that most of the force was lost, leaving only the slightest impression," Angela explained. Brennan felt a little sick, imagining the scenario Angela described.

She was grateful for the sudden reappearance of Booth at that moment, providing the distraction she needed to compose herself.

"Bones. I got what I need from Witness Protection. Let's go for a drive."

Brennan nodded and began to follow him but turned back after a few steps.

"Everybody…" They turned to look at her. "Thank you. I… Thank you." She smiled at them through watery eyes and turned again to join Booth, appreciating the hand he placed on her back as they left.

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"A pig farm?" Brennan asked in surprise. "That's where we're going?"

"Yeah, it's not too far outside the city actually. This guy was pretty bad news back in the day, so I need you to be really careful, alright?"

"'Back in the day?'" she echoed.

"Yeah, meaning…in the time before what he is now."

"And now he's a pig farmer?" she verified.

"Right."

They arrived at the farm a short while later, and Brennan wrinkled her nose slightly at the pungent scent of manure. Booth parked the SUV near a fifties-era Ford truck, and glanced around the area shrewdly. Despite his earlier warning, Booth couldn't repress the urge to caution her again.

"Okay, Bones, just listen to me. This guy, McVicar, he might be a pig farmer now, but he used to be a mechanic with ties to the Strong Arm crew that your parents ran away from."

"A mechanic? Like Russ?"

"Not like Russ; Russ fixes things. This guy, he used to kill people," he explained. They approached a man who appeared to be around sixty and was bent over to secure a fence. He heard them and turned, smiling politely.

"Can I help you folks?"

Booth wasn't in the mood for false pleasantries. He pulled his weapon immediately and aimed it at the man.

"Yeah, put your hands up. Do it." McVicar's smile slid off his face immediately, and he put his hands in the air.

"Booth…"

"Check him for a gun," he instructed her. She did as he said, walking toward the man to search him.

"What's going on?" McVicar asked nervously.

"He's got a .45," Brennan scoffed.

".45… Check his ankle."

"He's got a .38," she announced, slightly disturbed.

".38… I'm always right. I'm FBI. I know who you are," Booth told the man, still holding his gun on him.

"Steve Beers, pig farmer," the man said facetiously.

" _Vince McVicar_ , the pig farmer," Booth corrected him sarcastically. McVicar's features hardened into a deadpan stare.

"You want to talk to Vince McVicar, you do it through the Federal Marshals."

"If I do it through the Federal Marshals, I'm gonna have to tell them about a pig farmer who carries two concealed weapons."

"Three," Brennan interjected, finally done with her search. "He's got a .22 in the small of his back."

".22… I'm always right."

"No, you're not," she disagreed, backing away from McVicar to stand next to Booth and holding the man's own gun on him.

"Yes I am. Bones, will you put the gun down." Cullen's feeling about her might have improved, but Booth was sure he would _not_ be pleased if she shot this guy. Brennan slipped the gun into her pocket, scowling.

"What do you want?" McVicar asked flatly. Brennan studied him for a brief moment before answering.

"I'm Ruth Keenan's daughter." The words sounded odd in her head and were even worse coming from her mouth. Brennan continued to scrutinize him. McVicar's expression shifted to something like recognition and… happiness.

" _Joy?_ You're _Joy Keenan?_ Yeah… I can't see that," he added with a gentle laugh.

Booth holstered his gun but kept his hand on the grip, still wary of the man. He didn't know what kind of reaction he'd expected from McVicar, but this wasn't it.

"We need to ask you a few questions about Ruth Keenan," Booth said.

"Fine by me. Lot of work to do here though. You're welcome to follow me."

The partners glanced at each other but followed McVicar into a large barn.

"They found your blood in the car," Brennan told him.

"You hurt lots of people, Vince. You bashed their heads in."

"Well, they never proved that, or I wouldn't be in Witness Protection."

"Yeah, we know how it works, Vince. You rat out your crew. Everybody loses interest in a few old murders…" Booth replied in disgust.

"My mother was hit on the head."

"Yeah, I know. I was there," he answered, leaning his head forward and pulling back his hair to reveal a long scar near his forehead. "Thirty-two stitches."

"She fought back, huh?" Booth commented.

"Ruthie fought back, alright, but not against me."

"Then against whom?" Brennan asked quickly.

"Your father," he answered. Brennan's eyes widened, disbelieving.

"Why did he attack you?" Booth glared at him, knowing that the man was lying, and he felt his patience grow even thinner. McVicar scoffed and gave Booth a look that communicated more than his words.

"Think about it a second, alright?" he replied. For once, Brennan understood his nuance perfectly.

"You and my...my mother?"

"Me and Ruthie had run off together. Max caught us pulling into a motel outside of Champaign, Illinois… We were nuts about each other, Ruthie and me. Crazy in love."

"Okay, let's...let's just skip that part, okay?" Booth scowled at McVicar, and his eyes flickered nervously to Brennan as her eyes began to fill with tears and she shook her head in denial.

"Well, he hit Ruthie first," McVicar said quietly.

"With what?" Brennan asked.

"Tire iron."

 _No… no, that's not right._ She remembered that a tire iron was too big to leave the mark on her mother's skull.

"Hit my arm, caught me a roundhouse to the head," McVicar continued. "Lights out, baby. I came to, Ruthie and Max were gone. Never saw either of them again. If you ask me, Max killed Ruthie and buried her somewhere and vanished." _No, no, no…_ The word repeated endlessly in her mind. "Our plan… once we set up-most likely in Florida-was to bring you down. Your father's a hard man, Joy."

"My name is _Brennan_ ," she contradicted him, her tears flowing freely now. "I'm Dr… I'm _Dr. Temperance Brennan._ "

McVicar rolled his eyes and left the barn, but Booth moved closer to her. She gazed into the empty space and kept talking, more to herself than to anyone else.

"I work at the Jeffersonian Institution. I'm a forensic anthropologist. I specialize in identif…" she stammered and sniffled, trying to hold back the sob in her chest. "In identifying...in identifying people when nobody knows who they are. My father was a science teacher. My mother was a bookkeeper." Brennan began to cry harder. "My brother," she sobbed, wiping her tears. "I have a brother. I'm _Dr. Temperance Brennan_."

"I know who you are." His voice came from behind her, soothing and gentle, and quite possibly her favorite sound in the world. "Hey… I know." She turned to bury her face in his neck, and they wrapped their arms around one another instantly. "It's okay. Shhhh. It's gonna be alright."

Brennan sobbed into his shoulder and clung to him, willing the terrible images in her mind to fade away. Her father attacking her mother, killing her and burying her in an unmarked grave. Her mother having an affair, wanting to leave her father for another man… She tried desperately to focus on the man who was holding her. ' _I know who you are,'_ he'd said. It wasn't the first time he'd used those words, and Brennan found them to be even more comforting now. He knew who she was, even if she was uncertain.

Booth clutched her more tightly to his chest and swayed their bodies from side to side. Her pain was his pain. After a few minutes, he pulled back enough to rest his forehead against hers.

"It's gonna be okay, baby. We'll get the truth."

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Brennan was mostly silent in the car, doing her damndest to compartmentalize the emotions that were nearly tearing her apart. Booth didn't push her but merely held her hand, stroking it gently with his thumb.

Russ called him for an update, and he gave the man Brennan's address so that he could meet them there. When they arrived, he was waiting outside her front door. Booth quickly gave him a synopsis of the story they'd gotten from McVicar while Brennan listened. It sounded worse the second time around.

"No way Dad hits Mom. No way," Russ denied heatedly. Brennan agreed but was stuck on the logic.

"If he caught them together…"

"No way Mom cheats on Dad, _no way_."

"A man like McVicar, he lies the way you guys take a drink of water," Booth interjected. "He killed people, then snitched to save his own ass."

"You don't believe him?" Brennan asked, and Booth could easily hear the hope in her voice.

"No. I don't believe him." But Brennan wanted more.

"Give me one piece of evidence that doesn't back up his story," she said, leaning forward in her seat.

Booth explained the theory that had formed in his mind on the drive home, supposing that her parents had spotted McVicar while Christmas shopping and had known that he was a hit man sent to take them out. They would've done their best to lead him away from their children, removing the name of Brennan's school from the car. He suggested that McVicar had killed her father while her mother had gotten away with a head wound that would eventually kill her. She would've left the car a long distance away and could never have gone back or contacted them because the Strong Arm crew was still looking for her.

"It's just a story," Booth admitted.

"Fits the evidence," Brennan complimented him. Not to mention, it painted a far more comforting picture than the story McVicar had told them.

"Alright. You know what? The weapons that McVicar had on him, they're a violation of his agreement with the Witness Protection Program," Booth announced. "I'm gonna take him into custody, I'm gonna get a warrant, I'm gonna search his farm."

"Search for what?" Russ asked in confusion.

"McVicar liked to bash in people's heads," he explained, and both Brennans winced. "Maybe we'll get lucky and match the weapon he used on your mother."

"It's unlikely," Brennan stated, rising from her seat to pace.

"In that case, we'll still ruin his day," Booth replied, in a tone that conveyed he would be pretty satisfied either way.

Brennan gave him a look that was both grateful and affectionate, and Booth smiled back at her, kissing her quickly before leaving. Russ raised his eyebrows at the gesture but was glad to have his curiosity appeased. They were more than 'partners' after all. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, Booth being an FBI agent and all, but he seemed to be taking good care of his sister.

"Tempe, that theory explains why Mom never came back for you during that year and a half before she died."

"What's your excuse, Russ?" she asked coolly.

"You're the one that left _me_ ," he argued. She scoffed at him disbelievingly. "You needed someone to blame; you chose me."

"I was _fifteen years old_."

"I was _nineteen!_ My parents were gone, my sister hated my guts. Everyone's telling me that she'd be better off in foster care."

"You didn't even _ask_ me," she accused.

"I tried, Temperance. _You_ wouldn't talk to me." He rose from his seat, his anger building. "You _still_ wouldn't be talking to me if Mom's bones hadn't shown up. And I _kept_ trying. Every year. _Every year_ on your birthday. _You're_ the one that gave up! You turned your back on me, and you made yourself a new family."

Brennan gazed back at him with wide eyes, stunned into silence. He glanced back at her once as he left, and it felt like before. Like he was leaving her all over again. When he was gone, she wiped her cheeks and did her best to overcome her emotion.

 _He blamed_ her _?_ Brennan could hardly make sense of it. He'd _left_ her, literally. Yes, she'd been emotional, and she knew she'd hurt his feelings, but… Did he really not understand what his absence had meant for her? ... _Of course not. Who would have told him?_ she thought ruefully.

She didn't think she could handle being alone in her apartment at that moment. It was as though the words he'd spoken still hung in the air, weighing her down. Brennan grabbed her keys and practically bolted for the door.

 _Work. She needed to work._

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Her car was still at the lab since the previous night's battle with insomnia, so she took a cab. Brennan didn't look at or speak to anyone as she passed through the lab to her office, and she shut the door firmly, resisting the urge to lock it behind her. She was glad that the blinds were already closed.

Brennan sat down at her desk and began to reorganize the files she'd haphazardly tossed around a few days before, trying to avoid the memory of Russ's accusations. It was all just too much. Her mother's murder, the fake identities, the history of crime, the abandonment, _all of it_. It was too much. She felt raw and exposed, and although Booth had helped her to grow more comfortable with being vulnerable, Russ was the last person she wanted to let in. She wasn't sure if she could handle him leaving her _again_.

Brennan was torn between wanting her brother back and wanting him to simply go away. But she knew it was too late to undo what had been done. Their mother's murder had forced them together, and now they had to deal with it, one way or another.

A commotion from beyond her office door drew her attention, and Brennan reluctantly went to peek between the blinds. There were more people in the lab than usual, and Booth was with the rest of the team on the platform. She left her office and approached them curiously.

"What's going on?"

Hodgins and Angela explained that the FBI had delivered a large quantity of tools and weapons from McVicar's farm. Twenty hammers, a dozen hatchets, seven tire irons...none of which matched the wounds on her mother's skull.

"Ugh, it's always like this with McVicar," Booth complained. "You know, some mook is found with his forehead bashed in. The FBI goes in the basement, collects about forty hammers, and nothing matches."

"Always the forehead?" Brennan asked.

"Yeah, that's his signature kill. Not that anyone could ever prove it."

"You said guys like McVicar get comfortable with a way of killing…" she mused, picking up a hammer.

"Yeah…" He gazed at her expectantly. _What's she getting at?_

"Where did McVicar grow up?"

"He grew up a farm kid in Iowa. Why?"

"How do you slaughter a pig?"

They all looked at her with similar expressions of comprehension.

"Let's find out," Booth said. "Come on."

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"What happened?" he asked quietly, once they were alone in the SUV. She looked over at him in surprise, and his expression told her that he could see she was troubled. Brennan sighed wearily.

"Russ and I had an argument. He... he thinks that _I_ left _him_."

"What?"

"Not literally, he was referring to the way I treated him after our parents left. He tried to make it better for me, and I just…"

"You were upset, Bones. Anybody would've been."

"Yes, but he was upset too, and I guess I didn't see it well enough. I didn't realize how much my rejection hurt him."

Booth considered her words for a few moments and reached over to hold her hand.

"Do you think you can forgive him?" Booth asked hesitantly.

"I don't know… I'm certainly not the same person I was back then. Or even a year ago, for that matter," she admitted with a crooked smile. "I've spent most of my adult life running away from personal relationships, trying to avoid the pain I considered to be inevitable. But I'm not that person anymore… _You_ changed that." She smiled at him affectionately. "I don't… I wouldn't want to go back to the way I was."

Booth returned her smile and brought the back of her hand to his lips. He completely understood how she felt; she had changed him too.

"Do you think I _should_ forgive him?" she asked. Booth pulled in a deep breath before answering.

"I think maybe you should. Or at least try. I won't blame you if you can't, but I think that...it might be nice for you to have your brother in your life. As much as I can't stand mine, I do miss him sometimes. I wish we got along better. I think you and Russ...well, you both need to forgive _each other_. It goes both ways."

Brennan contemplated the prospect of allowing Russ back into her life with any degree of permanence. It was daunting, but she also found the idea rather appealing. Russ had been accurate in his statement that she had 'made herself a new family,' even if he hadn't known the half of it. He had watched her with her colleagues and friends, who had indeed become a sort of surrogate family, but even if he had realized she was in love with Booth, he didn't know about Parker or Hank. They were her family now too. Brennan sighed again and wondered if that meant that her brother couldn't also have a place. She thought back to the wounded, angry expression on his face as he'd left her apartment earlier.

 _Would he even want her back in_ his _life?_

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Brennan stood once more near a large pig pen on McVicar's farm, but this time they were accompanied by an FBI forensic team and a couple of US Marshals who had McVicar in their custody.

"Why is he here?" she asked Booth.

"He gets nervous, we know we're getting close." A tech approached them with an odd looking object in his hands.

"Found this in the barn," he announced, handing it to Brennan. "This is a spring-loaded captive bolt stunner. The animal is restrained, this is pressed to the forehead."

"Hmm," she said, examining the stunner and pressing it against the wooden fence board. She pulled the trigger, and the 'stunner' punched a hole in the fence, sending wood splinters flying in all directions. Booth made a noise of surprise and disgust.

"What kind of person could use this on a human being?" the tech asked, disturbed by the mental image.

"What kind of person could use this on a _pig_?" Brennan countered.

"It's the perfect dodge. Blood, flesh...it can all be explained," Booth said.

"I think I just became a vegetarian."

"So what do you think?" he asked, turning her attention back to the weapon.

"Yeah," she said, examining it again. "Same shape as the tire iron, but smaller. This could be a match."

"Before you decide anything, we should talk," McVicar shouted from near the police vehicles.

"I'd call that nervous, wouldn't you?" Booth commented. They walked back toward McVicar together. The man was in an orange jumpsuit with his hands cuffed behind his back, but his expression was arrogant.

"There's no way to prove that's the exact weapon that killed your mother or anyone else."

"You'd be surprised what she can prove," Booth advised him. McVicar ignored him and addressed Brennan.

"I need to speak to you alone."

"Forget it."

"Booth-"

"No."

"It's alright."

"No!"

" _It's alright."_ They communicated silently for a moment, and Booth clenched his fists inside of his jacket pockets. He stepped toward McVicar threateningly.

"You got two ways to look at this. One is, you score a private chat. The second one is, you attack her, and I'll _drill_ you through the forehead." Booth spoke through his teeth and got right in McVicar's face.

"How could I possibly attack her?"

"I'll decide what is and isn't an attack, like say… a _hiccup_." Brennan sighed quietly and moved to step between them.

"Booth, come on," she admonished lightly. Booth watched her walk a few paces away with McVicar, never taking his eyes off of the man. His hand rested on his gun.

"You killed my mother," she stated simply.

"Gonna be pretty hard to convince a jury," McVicar argued.

"I'm pretty persuasive. I'll put you away."

"Here's the thing, Joy. Two people know what really happened that night. Me and your father." Brennan scowled at him, hating the way he said her birth name.

"You killed him before you attacked my mother."

"Then how did I get this scar on my head?" he countered. "You got a choice, Joy. You drop the bolt stunner down the well, and you'll know what happened. You put me in front of a jury; not only will you fail to convict, but you'll never know the truth. You can't live with that, Joy. You can't live not knowing."

McVicar's expression was confident, convincing. But what he wasn't considering was that she had been living without knowing for fifteen years. And she didn't need him.

"I found out what happened to my mother. I will find out what happened to my father too. We're done." Brennan walked away from him, toward Booth.

"You will _never_ know what happened to your father," McVicar shouted. The partners glanced back at him, but Booth ushered her away and back to the SUV. Before she could climb in, he pulled her into a tight embrace. He kissed her long and hard, as though she might disappear if he let go of her. The other agents and US Marshals stared at them curiously, but the couple ignored them.

"I'm okay," she assured him when they had finally separated in need of oxygen. "Let's get out of here."

Booth nodded and surprised her by handing her the keys. She met his eyes questioningly.

"You drive."

"Are you sure?"

"If I weren't, I wouldn't have given you the keys," he answered with a smile. Once they were on the road, Brennan made a decision. They weren't going home.

"Why are you letting me drive?" she asked, remembering the last time she'd been behind the wheel of his vehicle. Booth looked calm, however, even if he was holding her hand tightly enough to hurt just a little.

"It's your reward."

"For what?"

"For totally pissing off a hit man." They chuckled together, and Booth closed his eyes briefly to enjoy the breathy sound of her laughter. It reminded him forcibly of the last time they'd made love, which in turn reminded him of something else.

"Can I read your book?"

"After it comes out," she answered automatically, wondering if he'd been trying to catch her off guard.

"Not before?"

"Well… I suppose I could get you an advance copy too." She grinned at him, and he gave her his best charm smile before noticing that she wasn't taking the exit they needed.

"Where are we going?"

"I'd like to make up for a little lost time…"

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"Where did you find Russ exactly?"

"The ferris wheel." They strolled in that direction and quickly spotted her brother.

"I'm gonna go get a funnel cake, okay?" Booth told her. Brennan gave him a chastising smile and bit back a remark that no one needed that much sugar. Booth drifted away as Russ approached her, but rather than indulge in fried dough blanketed in powdered sugar, he stayed close, watching the interaction.

"I have something for you," she said kindly, handing him the marble that their mother had been carrying.

"Thanks, Tempe." He began to move away, but she called out to stop him.

"Russ." He turned back. "You were right. You were only nineteen, but at the time…I didn't understand what that meant. Sometimes people need to explain things to me, I guess."

"Then... you have to let them talk to you," he pleaded gently. She bit her lip slightly and nodded.

"Yeah, I'm working on that. If you can maybe come back and stay a couple days longer? Please? At my place, I mean." Russ regarded her hesitantly for a moment.

"Marco."

Brennan smiled, feeling a rush of warmth in her chest.

"Polo," she replied, fighting tears. He hugged her a little awkwardly, but the longer he held her, the more natural it felt. Booth smiled at the sight, and once they had separated, he joined them to return to the SUV.

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Brennan explained what they had discovered about Vince McVicar and the real reason behind their parents' sudden disappearance, and Russ was glad to hear that the man who had killed their mother was behind bars. He didn't know what to make of the rest of the story. The idea of their parents deserting them to _save_ them had never occurred to him.

They arrived at Brennan's apartment late in the evening, and she offered them drinks once Booth had shut the door behind them.

"What time do we get Parker tomorrow?" Brennan called to Booth from the kitchen.

"I'm supposed to pick him up around nine," he answered distractedly. Sitting on her dining room table was a copy of her manuscript, and the temptation was simply too great.

"You have a boy?" Russ asked politely.

"Yeah." Booth lifted the cover to peek at the first page and felt his throat tighten.

 _To Special Agent Seeley Booth:_

 _My Best Friend and Partner in Every Way_

"The woman I'm seeing, she's got two daughters."

"Nice," Booth replied softly, smiling tenderly at Brennan as she returned from the kitchen with three bottles of beer. "Girls are nice."

Booth resisted the urge to pull Brennan into his arms and kiss her senseless right in front of her brother, choosing instead to accept the beer from her and propose a toast.

"To us."

"Whoever the hell we are," Russ chimed in.

"To what we're becoming," Brennan added, sharing a smile with her brother. The three of them clinked their bottles and drank. She glanced at her home telephone and noticed the blinking light which indicated she had a message waiting. When she pushed the button, the automated voice filled the apartment.

"New message recorded today, three pm." _Right after I left for the lab,_ Brennan thought. _Figures._ But when the actual message played, she felt her blood run cold. _Could that really be…?_ He sounded different, but halfway into the message she knew for sure. Her father was alive.

"Temperance?" a male voice said. "You have to stop looking. You have to stop looking for me right now. This is bigger and worse than you know. Please stop now."

Russ and Brennan exchanged looks of shock, and she could see that he recognized the voice as well.

"Who was that?" Booth asked, concerned at her stunned expression.

"That was my father," she replied. No one moved for a few moments as they processed their reactions to both the message and the man who'd left it. Booth recovered first, crossing the room to stand in front of her. She was staring into nothingness, looking pale, and Booth lifted her chin gently with his fingertips to gain her attention.

"Do you want me to trace the call?" he asked gently. Brennan met his eyes then, suddenly feeling even more confused. _Did she?_ Her father was technically a fugitive from the FBI for bank robbery and who knew what else. He was a criminal, and Booth's job was to catch him. _Why was he even asking then?_

"Why are you asking me that?"

Booth was surprised by the question and formed his answer cautiously.

"Because when you said that you wanted to find out what happened to your dad, you were working under the assumption that he was dead. That would've been an investigation into a death, possibly a murder. But him being alive changes things, Bones. Looking for him now makes it a search for a wanted criminal. And I won't do that to you unless you're okay with it."

"It's your job," she contradicted.

"Nothing says I can't let another agent handle it: give them the tip about the call and just walk away. If that's what you want, I'll do it."

Brennan's mind raced in maddening circles, and Booth waited patiently for her answer, watching the emotions play across her face. _Dad's alive_. The words echoed a dozen times in her head, until she felt slightly dizzy with shock. She understood now why her parents had left in the first place, but how could her father have stayed away for so long? Where had he been? How did he even get her number? How did he know what was going on? Once again, she needed answers, and as she looked into Booth's eyes again, her expression shifted to determination.

"Do it," she said simply. He nodded his acceptance and wrapped his arms around her, swaying a little as he held her. Brennan squeezed him back fiercely and peered over his shoulder at Russ. Her brother had remained silent and grim through their exchange, but now his expression was alarmed.

"Tempe, what about what Dad actually _said_?"

"What about it?" she answered stiffly.

"He said not to look for him, and it sounds like he's got pretty good reasons. I think we should just back off." Brennan's eyes narrowed in response.

"You seriously just want to let this go?" she asked incredulously, pulling out of Booth's embrace and staring irately at her brother. Booth shot Russ an exasperated look, knowing that all the guy was doing was winding his sister up for a fight.

"No, I don't _want_ to let this go, but it seems like the safest thing to do. Didn't you understand what he said?"

"Yes, Russ, I possess extraordinary cognitive skills, and I can certainly understand why a _fugitive_ would want his daughter, who works with the _FBI_ , to stop looking for him," she spat. Her brother's face flushed heatedly, and she recalled that it was a warning sign for his temper. She continued, raising her voice to head him off. "Don't you want the truth? Don't you want to know why he never came back? Why he _abandoned_ us and left us alone in the world for nearly _fifteen years_ without so much as a phone call?"

"Bones…" She didn't hear him over the steadily rising volume of her own voice. He was trying to calm her, but she had reached her limit.

"He didn't even tell us Mom was _dead_ , Russ. He just buried her and _moved on_."

"Of _course_ I want to know, Tempe, but everything so far has pointed to something dangerous going on back then. You _just_ finished telling me that Mom and Dad left to keep us safe, and it sounds like Dad's still protecting us from someone. We should listen."

"Do you seriously trust him? After _everything_ we've been through because of the choices they made?"

"I've got two stepdaughters and a woman I love, Tempe, and I'm not about to put them at risk." He was yelling now, and she was standing less than a foot from him. Booth watched her cautiously, ready to intervene if she did something she might regret later. Like knock Russ's teeth down his throat.

" _You're not the only one with a family!"_ she shouted back at him. "But _I_ refuse to hide behind them."

Russ fumed, realizing that his sister had called him a coward, but he was somehow unable to argue with the accusation. She wasn't far off, and even he knew it. Russ had been afraid fifteen years ago, and he was afraid now. But his little sister almost never showed fear, and he simply didn't know how to handle that.

Brennan fell silent, seething and frustrated with him. She turned away only to find Booth standing directly behind her. She buried her face against his neck and let him soothe her for a few moments, slowly feeling her pulse return to its usual speed. Booth felt it too, and only when he was sure she was through the worst of her anger did he pull away to look into her eyes.

"It's gonna be okay, Bones. I'll find him, if that's what you want," he assured her softly. Angry tears had spilled down her cheeks, and he wiped them away before pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"I need to know what happened, Booth. I'm so tired of _speculating._ I need the truth."

"Then that's what we'll do. We won't stop looking until you get some answers." The two of them were back to ignoring Russ, and Brennan allowed Booth to hold her for a few more moments while her brother stood in an awkward silence.

As irritated as Brennan was with Russ, she didn't kick him out.

"You can sleep in the guest room," she told him, her voice slightly hoarse from shouting. "It's late; I'm going to bed." She squeezed Booth's hand and met his concerned gaze, pleading for just a few minutes alone. He nodded to show he understood and watched her disappear down the hall.

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The silence was thick with tension after the bedroom door clicked shut. Booth regarded Russ thoughtfully for a moment before moving to check the locks and windows.

"You're staying too?" Russ asked curiously.

"That a problem?" His tone was surly, as if daring the man to tell him to leave.

"No, I just wasn't sure… Well, exactly what kind of 'partners' are you guys anyway?"

"Every kind there is," Booth replied soberly. "I love your sister, and there isn't anything I wouldn't do for her. And that _includes_ encouraging her to forgive a brother who probably doesn't deserve it." Russ opened his mouth to argue, but Booth held up a hand to silence him. "Do you have _any_ idea what the foster care system was like for her?"

Russ stopped short, surprised and confused by the topic change. He faltered for a moment, thinking back to those years.

"I only know she got moved around a lot…" he admitted nervously. "And that her social worker said she was a 'troubling case.' When I asked what that meant, the lady said that Tempe was acting out and causing problems in pretty much every home they found for her." Booth's eyes widened in alarm, feeling his own fury mounting as Russ continued. "Hearing that really only made me more sure that I couldn't possibly have handled responsibility for her, especially when she wouldn't even speak to me anymore."

Booth was disgusted that anyone would say those things, and probably worse, about _his_ Bones. It should have been clear to any qualified professional in that field that Brennan was the victim several times over, rather than the source of the problem. And how could her brother have believed it? Hadn't he known her at all? Booth took a few deep breaths to calm himself and leveled a cold stare at Russ.

"There's a lot more to that story...but it's not my story to tell," he said grimly. Booth's tone shifted into the one he had used earlier that day when speaking to McVicar, and he continued. "I will say this though. If you hurt her again, it'll be the end of my tolerance toward you. Because as it is, I've already been having a hard time not beating the shit out of you." He turned to walk away, leaving Russ sputtering in his wake.

"Guest room and main bathroom are down the hall on the right. Turn off the lights when you're done in here."

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Brennan had just finished in the shower when Booth entered the bedroom, pulling the door closed behind him. She was sitting up in bed and smoothing her lotion over her hands; her hair was still wet. They exchanged a soft, lingering look but didn't speak until Booth had finished getting ready for bed and joined her beneath the blankets.

"Did Russ leave?" she asked in a tone Booth couldn't quite decipher. It was timid and nervous-and not like Brennan at all.

"No, he's in the guest room." Her features showed relief, and it was then that Booth realized she'd been afraid that she'd pushed him away again. He pulled her to him, his heart aching for her. "I'm so sorry this is happening, Bones."

Brennan opened her mouth to assure him that it wasn't _his_ fault, but she realized that he was empathizing rather than apologizing.

"Me too. I find that I'm greatly relieved to finally understand what happened to my mother and almost equally frustrated with my father's behavior. And Russ…"

Booth sighed and stroked his fingertips lightly over her bare shoulder and down the length of her arm. He wished he knew the right thing to say. 'I'm sorry' seemed insufficient.

"Thank you for being here, Booth. I really don't know how I would handle all of this on my own."

"You'll never have to, baby. I'm not going anywhere." He suspected that she needed to hear the words even if she already knew the truth of them in her heart. His suspicion was confirmed when she closed her eyes and breathed deeply as if to savor the sound of them.

"I love you."

"I love you too. Thank you for letting me in, Bones. For not running, not hiding behind those metaphorical walls of yours. I was a little worried that you might… But I'm so proud of how strong you've been. It's amazing. Really."

Brennan sighed thoughtfully and couldn't help but contradict him.

"I've cried more this week than I have in a pretty long time," she observed dryly. "Doesn't seem all that 'strong.'"

"Crying doesn't make you weak, Bones."

She smiled sadly at him but didn't argue, choosing instead to lean into him slightly and brush her lips across his. Booth's fingers wove into her hair, tilting her head slightly to deepen this kiss. Their pulses quickened, and their breathing became a little erratic as they clung to one another. Though she was still upset, Brennan realized that what she needed most in that moment was to be close to him. Booth, however, worried that she might feel he was taking advantage of her vulnerability, and he pulled slightly away to collect himself.

"No…" she whispered with soft urgency. "Make me forget all of it, just for a little while. Please?" Her need for intimacy was almost primal; she craved it, _craved him_.

Booth was happy to oblige, seizing her lips once more and slipping his tongue between them. Brennan's hands roamed pleasantly over his chest and shoulders, and her body responded instinctively to the perfect definition of his musculature. She moaned rather loudly when his hand slipped beneath her tank top to caress her breasts, and he shushed her, reminding her that her brother was right across the hall.

They made love as quietly as possible, but Brennan had always been a fairly vocal lover. Complete silence was impossible. Booth covered her mouth was his to muffle her involuntary sounds as much as possible. When she came in his arms, she bit down on his shoulder to keep from crying out at the exquisite pleasure of it. Booth pressed his own face against her neck, unable to keep his own cry of release in his chest. They collapsed, exhausted, and fell asleep holding one another.

Across the hall, Russ Brennan pretended not to hear a thing.

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Saturday dawned brightly but unseasonably cold, and Booth was glad they'd planned indoor activities for Parker that day. The last time he'd had his son for the weekend, they'd made plans for another museum trip, though Booth had assured Brennan that they could act as their own tour guides this time. Considering the stress of the past month, he was certain that his self-control would slip if he were forced to watch Dr. Dinosaur try to put the moves on his girlfriend again.

Brennan emerged from the bedroom first and started breakfast, pleased that she remembered how her brother preferred his eggs. She also made some bacon for the men and some oatmeal for herself. She didn't mind cooking meat for others, but she had been completely serious about becoming a vegetarian. It wasn't as though she ate enough meat to really miss it, and she knew that it was a healthy lifestyle choice as well.

Russ joined them as Booth was getting ready to leave, and the two men shared a loaded glance which did not go unnoticed by Brennan. She raised a brow at Booth, but he merely shook his head dismissively. He ate breakfast quickly, making small talk with Russ so politely that the man wondered if he'd imagined Booth's thinly veiled threats the night before.

Booth rose from the table to return his dishes to the kitchen, and he gave Brennan a quick kiss before heading out to pick up his son, leaving her alone at the table with her brother.

"Look, Tempe… I'm sorry about last night. I didn't mean to hurt you, and I'm sorry my temper got the better of me," he said regretfully. Brennan sighed and pursed her lips.

"I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have implied that you are a coward. It was unkind of me."

"Maybe… But it was also a little true. I was too much a coward to do right by you back then. If I'd had any sense, I never would've listened to that social worker, no matter how angry you were."

"We both made mistakes, and we need to forgive one another. The past is over." Russ nodded in response but couldn't get Booth's words out of his mind. He'd thought about it long into the night, both wanting and not wanting to know what 'story' he'd been referring to. He watched his sister pushing her eggs around on her plate and was reminded forcefully of a much younger Temperance. One who thought her big brother hung the moon, who would talk to him even on days she refused to speak to anyone else. And in that moment, he realized that if he didn't at least ask her about it, he would be acting like a coward yet again.

"I'll understand if you'd rather not tell me, but… I'd like to know more about your time in foster care." She looked at him, startled.

"Why? And why now?" she asked. Russ sighed in resignation.

"I want my sister back," he answered simply. "I want to know about your life, what I've missed...and I figure we may as well start where we left off."

Brennan was silent for so long that he didn't think she was going to answer, but he forced himself to wait patiently for either a show of trust or an excuse to flee. She gazed across the table at him speculatively, and she had to admit at least to herself that his logic made sense. Brennan took a deep breath and nodded, beginning to organize the details in her mind.

"I went through nine foster homes before aging out," she began, keeping her tone as detached and clinical as she could manage. "In between those placements, I spent time in several group homes and emergency placements while they tried to find the next family. There are some experiences I won't discuss in detail, but I suppose that perhaps you do need to hear a censored version so that you can understand why I ignored your calls."

Russ nodded but wisely decided not to interrupt. He would listen to whatever she was willing to tell him, but the look on her face was starting to make him wish he hadn't brought up the subject after all.

"Of the nine homes I was in, seven of them involved circumstances of abuse or neglect in some form-" Russ blanched visibly, but she didn't see it. Brennan couldn't bring herself to make eye contact while revealing this much of herself to someone she still wasn't entirely sure she could trust. "-the mildest being emotional abuse, the worst involving an incident of captivity in the trunk of a car for two days, and various degrees of physical abuse and neglect in between. It involved things like the withholding of food and water, an occasional slap to the face, a push down the stairs, a twisted arm, a blow to the head, or sexual assault."

Russ made a horrified sort of choking sound, unable to control the sob that rose up in his throat. Brennan chewed her lip indecisively, appreciating the guilt that he was feeling, but she pressed on. _He'd wanted to know_.

"I reported everything, of course, but it rarely mattered. Only two of the incidents were ever taken seriously." Brennan finally raised her eyes to meet his, and the broken-hearted expression on his face made her eyes sting. Russ stood abruptly, rounded the table, and pulled her gently to her feet. He hugged her so tightly that she had trouble breathing, but she didn't pull away. This was the compassion she had needed from him all those years ago, and she allowed herself to draw comfort from it now, even if it was very late in coming.

"I swear, Tempe, I never knew anything about _any_ of that," he promised her, sniffling. He relaxed his grip on her and motioned to the couch. Once they were seated again, he continued. "I was notified when you were relocated, but the social worker told me that you'd been acting out and causing problems in each home. Hearing that made me feel like I'd done the right thing because I knew I wasn't qualified to raise a troubled teen just four years younger than I was. The caseworker made it sound like they knew how to help you, and you'd be just fine."

Russ shook his head, guilt-ridden and sick to his stomach. Brennan wasn't all that surprised by his words and told him so. She explained that she knew what her file had said about her, knew what lies her caseworkers had turned into government record so as to cover the abuses of a system broken nearly beyond repair. Stories were changed, things were taken out of context, and foster parents and siblings made false accusations against her so as to avoid punishment for their actions. Brennan had no misconceptions about how things would've been explained to him in contrast with what had actually happened.

"At the time, I assumed that you believed what they said about me and didn't want to be my family anymore," she confessed shyly.

"It wasn't like that at all," he insisted. "I thought about you all the time, I just didn't know how to make things better. I was such a coward… I swear, if I had it to do all over again, I would've stood outside your bedroom door and refused to leave until you talked to me. God, it's no wonder you hate me," he finished miserably. Brennan gave him a sad smile and squeezed his hand.

"I don't hate you, Russ. I never did." He pulled her into another tight hug and spoke into her shoulder for a moment.

"I promise that I'll be here for you from now on-whether you want me to or not. I won't abandon you again, no matter how mad you get at me. I won't take no for an answer."

Brennan nodded and hugged him back for a few seconds before they separated again.

"I realize that means helping you find Dad, or at least not making a stink about it while Booth does it. I understand why you need answers." Brennan thanked him and smiled warmly at him.

Russ had more questions about her years in the system, and she felt comfortable answering most of them. She ended up telling him at least as much as she'd told Booth about those years, perhaps a little more. Every time something had happened or someone had hurt her again, Brennan had wondered whether her brother would come back for her if he'd known. It was somewhat vindicating now to realize that he would have, no matter how difficult she'd been when their parents left.

The conversation eventually moved on to other things. Stories about college, her degrees, her travels, her books-including the new one that would be going to print very soon as well as the one she's started earlier that week. Russ admitted that he had read Bred in the Bone and had been so proud of her when he first saw it. Brennan was revisited by a sensation similar to the one she felt when Booth spoke of his pride in her as well. It was something she had truly missed since her parents had left, and hearing the words now seemed to heal some of the wounds she'd carried for so long.

Russ told her about his life as well, and Brennan did her best to keep her features neutral as he explained how he'd gotten in trouble with the law, done time in prison, and was now on parole. She refrained from criticizing him and merely directed the topic toward the family he'd mentioned the night before.

He told her about his girlfriend, Amy, and her two daughters Emma and Hayley. Brennan found it interesting that they both had children in their lives who weren't biologically theirs, and she enjoyed listening to his stories about learning to be a father to the two school-age girls.

Brennan had the urge to talk about Parker, but at that precise moment, the front door opened, and the little boy came streaking into the room.

"Dr. Bones!"

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 **Couldn't resist the temptation to bring Parker back for a couple of scenes before we're done. Obviously, this is the part where I go off script, and I hope it turns out well.**

 **If you liked it, let me know!**


	28. Chapter 28

**Happy Bonesday Eve!**

 **Thank you so very much for the reviews and Twitter promoting some of you have been doing for this story. It means a lot! And a special thank you to chosenname who helped me to hammer out the details in my head for this chapter and the next. Enjoy!**

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Chapter 28

Brennan laughed happily and opened her arms for Parker. He wasted no time in climbing onto her lap and wrapping his little arms tightly around her neck. Brennan hugged him back for as long as the active child would tolerate and spotted Russ smiling in surprise. Parker stayed on Brennan's lap but turned around to look curiously at the newcomer.

"Parker, this is my brother Russ. Russ, this is Booth's son Parker." The little boy gazed back at him a little shyly but returned Russ's pleasant smile after a moment.

"It's very nice to meet you, Parker."

"Nice to meet you." He looked back his father, and Booth smiled encouragingly, moving to carry Parker's bag to the guest room. "Are you her big brother or her little brother?" he asked curiously.

"I'm her big brother."

"That's good," Parker said wisely. "Girls need big brothers to keep them safe." Russ swallowed thickly but maintained his smile.

"I completely agree, Parker." This earned him a smile.

"I wish _I_ had a sister. How much older are you?"

"Four and a half years," Russ replied, sneaking a glance at Brennan's reaction to the boy's words. She looked only mildly surprised.

"That's how old I am!"

"Wow, you're almost all grown up. I bet you're starting school next year, huh?"

"Yup! I'm going to Kindergarten. I already know how to read though. Dr. Bones taught me." It was true. Over the past few months, Brennan had made a habit of reading Parker's bedtime stories, breaking down the words for him and explaining the sounds of each letter. Parker had been so interested that he'd begun asking her to read every word he saw when they were out, and it hadn't taken long before he was announcing them himself.

"That's amazing," Russ answered, looking duly impressed. "I bet you'll be as smart as she is someday."

"Maybe. But Daddy says Dr. Bones is a _genius._ She knows _everything._ "

Brennan chuckled indulgently and shook her head. Try as she might, she hadn't been able to convince either Parker _or_ his father that that wasn't really true.

"I think you may be right about that. She was a genius even when she was your age," Russ confided impressively. Parker seemed thrilled to have found someone who like to talk about his favorite subject: _Dr. Bones_. Russ began to tell him stories about what she had been like as a little girl, and Brennan listened, growing a little misty-eyed at the memories his words brought to the surface. Booth caught her eye from across the room and smiled.

When Parker had finally gotten his fill of Brennan stories, he turned to her and asked if they were still going to the museum.

"Of course," she replied, glancing at the clock. "Actually it'll be time to go soon."

"Can I get a snack first?" he asked hopefully. "I ate breakfast, but I'm still hungry." Brennan laughed. Parker was _always_ hungry.

"Sure, if it's okay with your dad." They both turned to give an inquiring look, and he nodded with a playful roll of his eyes.

"Sure, buddy. Don't spoil your appetite for lunch though, alright?"

"I won't!" Parker scooted off of Brennan's lap, and she followed him into the kitchen. He rambled on about what he wanted to see this time at the museum, and Brennan listened attentively as she fixed him a snack and a cup of water.

Russ had enjoyed seeing his sister behaving so maternally. He'd been surprised by it at first, but the more he'd talked to Parker and watched him with Brennan, the more clear it became that he was special to her. He obviously made her happy, and Russ couldn't help but wonder if Brennan had any plans to give Parker that younger sibling he wanted. After they disappeared into the kitchen, Russ met Booth's gaze.

"Thanks for taking care of my sister." Booth nodded but didn't reply for a moment.

"I take it you talked about things?"

"Yeah," Russ replied, a shadow crossing his face. Booth didn't need to ask what they'd talked about. Russ's expression was telling.

Brennan had set Parker up at the table with his snack and walked back into the living room, stopping to lean down and kiss Booth's cheek. He snatched her hands and pulled them around his shoulders, turning his head to kiss her properly.

"Okay, that's enough, thank you…" Russ said, averting his eyes and shifting uncomfortably. The partners chuckled and snuck just one more kiss before separating.

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Booth had done quite a bit of theorizing on his way to pick up Parker, and he knew that he needed to talk to Brennan about her father. However, his son's presence-not to mention that of her brother-made finding time for the conversation rather difficult. He had called Angela from the car and asked her to trace Max Keenan's phone call. She'd agreed but told him that she most likely wouldn't have results until Monday.

Booth didn't really expect the trace to lead them anywhere in respect to finding the man. Max had been evading capture for more than thirty years; a phone call to his daughter wouldn't be what broke the case. Tracing the call was more procedure than anything else. Booth was certain that Max had been following her. It had to have been Max who'd been triggering Booth's instincts over the past month. He didn't know why Max would be hanging around, other than the obvious reason-to make sure his daughter was okay. The man's phone message made it pretty clear that he did at least care about Brennan's safety.

Booth was pulled out of his distracted thoughts by their arrival at the Jeffersonian Air and Space Museum. Parker was practically vibrating in his car seat, talking a mile a minute about what he wanted to see first. Russ had tagged along and was smiling kindly at the little boy.

Parker held Brennan's hand as they moved through the museum, listening as she taught him what she knew about each exhibit. A good bit of the information she gave him was nowhere to be found on the plaques or signs that were posted, and even though Russ knew perfectly well how intelligent his sister was, he was still impressed. Brennan was able to explain things so that even a four year old could understand them, and she never seemed to tire of his endless requests for more information. Most adults would have shushed him or made an excuse that they didn't know the answers, but Brennan didn't treat him that way. Booth thought that it was probably one of the biggest reasons Parker was so taken with her.

The four of them went to Wong Foo's for lunch, impressing Russ once again with Sid's uncanny ability to serve exactly what he wanted without Russ having to say a word to him. They had a pleasant meal together, and Russ invited them to come stay with him for a while over the summer. He wanted her to meet his family, and he was sure that Parker would have a great time with Hayley and Emma.

Brennan replied that she would enjoy that, and Booth agreed that it sounded like a great idea. He'd been itching to get Brennan on a beach since her last 'vacation.' He doubted that his son would be able to join them, however. There was no way Rebecca was going to let him keep Parker for that long. Luckily, the boy had been talking Sid's ear off about their museum trip when Russ had brought it up, so he wouldn't have to be disappointed at his mother's refusal.

Russ headed back home that evening, needing to get back to his family and responsibilities. He gave Brennan a lengthy goodbye hug and shook Booth's hand. After he'd gone, Booth made dinner for the three of them while Brennan entertained Parker with one of her puzzles. It was a little trickier to keep him occupied without a television, but they managed reasonably well.

Parker ended up falling asleep earlier than usual, no doubt exhausted by all of the excitement, and once he was in bed for the night, Booth tried to prepare himself for the conversation he knew he needed to have with Brennan.

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She was waiting for him in bed, apparently having some things she wanted to discuss as well.

"Russ changed his mind about finding Dad. He said he's okay with it, and he'll help if he can." Booth was pleasantly surprised, and it showed in his features.

"That something you guys talked about this morning while I was gone?" he asked, relaxing against the headboard next to her.

"Yes, among other things. I… He asked me to tell him about foster care," she told him hesitantly. They didn't speak of her experiences often, but whenever the topic came up, she always noticed that the pulse in his neck seemed to quicken visibly. Booth nodded, having suspected as much from the expression Russ had worn when he had thanked Booth for taking care of her. He had been gratified to see that Russ had taken things seriously.

"And you told him?"

"Yes. A lot of it, actually. He said that he would've come back for me if he'd known any of it back then. And that if he could do it all over, he wouldn't have left. He promised that he'd be there for me from now on, and I… I think I actually believe him." Booth could see the peace her brother's words had brought her, and he was happy for it. However, it did make him even more reluctant to turn the conversation to her father.

"That's great, Bones. I'm glad he's stepping up. It's long overdue, but… I really hope that you can have the relationship with him that you should've had all along." He smiled affectionately at her, and she returned it.

"I hope so too." Brennan leaned over to kiss him gently. "Now it's your turn. Want to tell me what's had you so distracted all day?"

"How could you tell I was distracted?" Booth asked, genuinely surprised. Brennan raised her brows in a manner that translated to ' _Are you seriously asking me that?'_ Booth chuckled, then sighed ruefully.

"I've been thinking about that phone call from your dad…" Brennan nodded, encouraging him to continue. "I would've thought of it last night, but you guys were arguing a lot. And then we went to bed, and… well, you know. Anyway, I called Angela this morning to have her trace the call, and she said she'd get back to us about it on Monday. But then I really started thinking about how your dad even knew what was going on enough to make him think the call was necessary…"

Brennan nodded again, letting his words sink in. She'd had the same thought briefly the previous evening, but her argument with Russ had pushed it out of her mind. Now that Booth brought it up again, she had to agree that it was odd.

"You have a theory?" she asked patiently.

"Yeah… I think he's been following you. Following us. I'm sure he also has contacts that feed him information, but he would've had to have a reason to talk to them in the first place. I think he's been watching for a while actually." Booth held his breath nervously as he watched her process his words.

"How long of a while exactly?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But all those times that I've been sure we were being watched… I think it was him. I think he must've overheard something this week, or maybe he just saw Russ with us and knew something had happened." Brennan was silent for a few moments, unsure of the appropriate response.

"I agree that it does seem like a logical explanation, but…why couldn't he have let me know he was around? How could he be watching us for weeks and never speak to me, never make contact? Until now, of course, when there's a decent chance that he simply doesn't want the FBI looking for him any harder."

He could hear the hurt in her voice and pulled her into his arms gently. He'd thought of those things as well and had known that it would hurt her feelings. Brennan rested her head against his shoulder, lost in thought.

"I think he's been hanging around to protect you. Or at least to check on you to make sure you're alright."

"But that doesn't add up, Booth. If he thinks I'm in danger from a person or persons from his past, then what cause would he have to be following us for so long? You thought we were being followed weeks ago, while we were working on Amy Cullen's case, and several times since then. If he thought that the investigation into my mother's death was putting me in danger, then why would he have started weeks before her remains even turned up?"

"That's a good point," he sighed. "I don't know the answer, but maybe…" Booth hesitated, not sure how best to phrase his thoughts.

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe he's been watching you for longer than we've realized. If… If I were him, I'd want to know that my kid was okay." Brennan was shaking her head before he finished his last sentence.

"No, _you_ wouldn't have left in the first place. You would never have put yourself or your child in that position. If my father truly cared the way you're suggesting, he wouldn't be hiding from me. He wouldn't have stayed away for so many years." Her voice broke on the last word, and Booth tightened his arms around her.

"It's okay," he soothed. "Let's just try not to worry about it for now. We'll see what Angela can come up with and go from there, okay?" She nodded into his chest. They fell silent then, both of them enjoying the feel of the other's skin against their fingertips, and it wasn't long before Brennan had dozed off. Booth kissed her forehead tenderly and tried to get some sleep as well.

As a father, he could identify with Max on a personal level, and if the man really was making an effort to keep an eye on his daughter, as Booth truly believed, then he couldn't help but feel a begrudging kinship to Brennan's father. Booth may not fully understand the reasons for Max's extended absence from his children's lives, but it was clear to Booth that the man still cared about them.

Booth's eyes became steadily heavier, and he pressed his lips once more into Brennan's hair, hoping she didn't have to wait too long for the answers she needed.

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Booth stopped by the lab on Monday to pick Brennan up for lunch, and as the couple walked toward the sliding glass doors, Angela called to them from her office doorway.

"Booth, I've got the trace on that call," she told him, looking a little nervous. They followed her into her office and looked at her expectantly. "The call came from a cell phone in the DC area," she began, then shifted her eyes meaningfully toward Booth. "A _burner phone_ that hasn't been turned on again since the call was made."

Booth felt a flicker of recognition at her words. She'd said them before.

"Like the anonymous calls from a few months ago?" Booth prompted.

"Exactly like them."

Booth and Brennan remained silent for a moment, considering the implications. Brennan was the first to speak.

"You're implying that my father called me several months ago and left silent messages on my answering machine?"

"There's no proof, but…it kind of looks that way, Sweetie."

"Why would he have done that? What possible reason would there have been to call me and not speak to me?"

Neither Booth nor Angela had an answer for her, and Booth's mind was traveling backward, trying to remember exactly what had been going on at the time of the previous calls. _We'd just closed the Little Salvador case,_ he thought. _If it was Max, why would he have chosen that time to break his silence?_ As usual when he was trying to understand a motive, he put himself in the other person's shoes. If it were him and he'd heard that his daughter was shot at or that a gang had put a hit on her, he'd want to make sure she was okay. He'd want to see her or hear her voice. Booth was almost certain that was what Max had done, but after their conversation Saturday night, he wasn't sure Brennan would agree.

"Maybe he just wanted to hear your voice," Booth suggested quietly.

"But I wasn't home to answer the phone," Brennan pointed out.

"Right. So he called again, but you still didn't answer. Maybe after that he saw you or something, so he didn't need to call again to check on you."

"Booth, if my father cared about me, he'd never have stayed away for this long. And even if he did, why would he have chosen that day to break fifteen years of radio silence?"

"The Little Salvador case," he said calmly. "The shooting made it into the news, and then Mara Muerte put a hit out on you. If Max has criminal contacts in the area, there's a good possibility he would've heard about it. If it were me-"

"Stop saying that! Stop comparing yourself to him. _You_ are a loving father. _He_ is not." As comforting as the scenario that he was proposing might be, Brennan couldn't let herself believe it without proof.

Booth pursed his lips but chose not to argue with her about it. She would believe what made sense to her until she had reason to change her mind, and Booth had no doubt that one would eventually come. He knew there was no proof that Max deserved the credit Booth was giving him, but he had a gut feeling about the guy.

And Booth's gut feelings were rarely mistaken.

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With Booth's help, Brennan arranged a burial for her mother the following week. Booth talked her into holding a small service for her, which was attended by Russ and his family, Parker, and their lab family. Brennan hadn't really wanted a funeral. Her mother hadn't been religious, and Brennan felt that funerals were meaningless rituals for the most part anyway. Nothing anyone said or did could bring back the dead, and talking to someone after they'd died was pointless. Her mother couldn't hear anything anymore. Though Booth disagreed with her, he didn't argue. He felt that she'd had enough emotional upheaval and deserved the opportunity to simply let it go.

Over the next two weeks, the team enjoyed a reprieve from murder cases, and most of them felt it was a welcome change of pace. Hodgins was the only one bellyaching about boredom and the tedious work involved in their Limbo cases.

During the second week, however, Brennan started her analysis of a set of ancient remains discovered in Alaska. They were thought to belong to a nomadic tribesman who had successfully crossed the Bering Strait from northern Asia. She was collaborating with a colleague out of Anchorage in an effort to publish an article in _American Anthropologist_ , and since she was only scheduled to have access to the remains for a week, she was working longer hours than she had in quite some time.

She left each morning before Booth was even awake, arriving at the lab by six, and he had been making a habit of bringing takeout to her office just to make sure she stopped working long enough to eat. Before her relationship with Booth, Brennan would have simply slept and showered at work, making time for meals when her body reached the point that she could no longer ignore her hunger. But now she had a reason to go home at the end of each day, even if she didn't leave work until late in the evening. Brennan registered the change in her habits with affection. _Yes, Booth had certainly changed her life in many ways._

As she showered for work on Thursday morning of that week, she was pleasantly surprised by the appearance of her partner, pulling open the curtain and stepping in to join her. She smiled lovingly at his fatigued expression and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Good morning," she said softly.

"Morning," he replied, encircling his arms around her waist. "How much longer do you have to go in _so_ early?" he whined.

"Just tomorrow. I'm nearly done with my analysis." Booth made a low humming noise as he leaned in to kiss her. The contact was light at first, but the stimulation of their naked bodies pressed against one another, in addition to the hot water of the shower, quickly encouraged things to escalate.

His hands moved deftly over her back, caressing from her shoulders to her buttocks and pulling her hips firmly into his. Brennan's hands wandered as well, traveling the breadth of his chest and shoulders as her tongue mated with his, and she knew that she would never tire of kissing him.

Booth's mouth left hers for a few moments to pay homage to the delicious skin of her neck, and she moaned loudly as he kissed and nipped his way hungrily toward her chest. He captured one hardened nipple, sucking it forcefully into his mouth with a groan of pleasure. He adored her breasts. He had spent plenty of time looking at them (while trying _not_ to look at them) before they'd gotten together, and now that he was permitted to do so, she caught him staring openly on an almost daily basis.

To be fair, he stared at her gorgeous face and brilliant blue eyes just as much if not more. Booth didn't anticipate ever getting his fill of looking at her, or touching her either, for that matter. He had painstakingly memorized every sexy inch of her body. Every curve, every freckle, every scar. He knew how to elicit her moans and gasps, how to drive her to distraction and make her want him badly enough to beg for his touch.

She knew him as well. She knew just how to touch him in that almost excruciatingly delicious way that made his toes curl with pleasure. She knew that he loved when she left occasional marks on his smooth skin, almost as much as he loved to leave them on hers. Brennan knew all of his sounds and how to produce them; she had memorized the way his entire body stiffened just before his release.

And now their hands and mouths moved skillfully to bring one another to the exhilarating edge of their sanity before plummeting right over it, locked in a passionate embrace. Booth brushed his fingertips teasingly against her core, and her body jerked in his arms. He smiled against her skin at her response to his touch. Brennan _always_ responded, and he always seemed to crave more of her.

Feeling that she was ready for him, he lifted her against the shower wall and plunged deep, burying himself to the hilt. Brennan cried out softly at their joining and gripped his shoulders for support. Her legs wrapped around his hips and urged him to quicken his pace. He obliged willingly, kissing her with mind-numbing skill while she clawed wildly at his back.

He felt her frame begin to tremble and knew she was close, so he carefully repositioned his arms so that her thighs rested on his forearms and her knees were pushed closer to her body. With only a few more strokes, Brennan shuddered and spasmed around him, drawing his release as well.

As the aftershocks rolled through them both, their lips joined again, kissing in a slow gentle rhythm that belied the pace with which they had reached their climax. When his arms began to ache a little, he slipped out of her slowly and eased her legs back to the shower floor.

 _Yes,_ Booth thought happily, _shower sex was definitely still their 'thing.'_

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She showed up right at six again. _Alone,_ he thought, shaking his head. He would've thought that, as smart as she was, she wouldn't leave herself so predictably vulnerable. He watched as she lingered in her car for a moment, possibly gathering her things, before she opened the door to step out. She had her phone in her hand. _Must have been texting._

 _Thirty seconds_. That was all he needed, and that was all it took. She turned her body as if to reach back into the vehicle for her something, placing herself in just the right position. Thirty seconds for the dart to find its mark, dropping her to the ground almost instantly. Thirty seconds for him to pull his own car next to hers, lift her into his arms, lay her in the trunk, bind her hands and feet, and slam the lid shut.

 _Thirty seconds. And she was gone._

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Max Keenan's brows pulled together in confusion, and he flicked off his turning signal quickly. He'd been about to turn into the parking structure at the Jeffersonian when he spotted a familiar black sedan exiting the garage at a rather inappropriate speed. The man behind the wheel was pulling a mask off of his head as he merged into traffic, which made his hasty exit all the more concerning.

Max didn't need to see his face to know who was driving the car, and he followed him conscientiously, doing his best not to _look_ like he was tailing. This was the first opportunity he'd had to track this creep with enough discretion to satisfy him.

After his last phone call to his daughter, with which he had actually worked up the nerve to leave a real message on her machine, he'd decided to stick around for a little while longer. Max had wanted to keep an eye on the man driving the car now in front of him as well as to be on alert for those from his own past who might be targeting his daughter. He hoped that she'd had the sense to heed his warning and to call her FBI partner off his back, but he couldn't be sure. Russ had gone back home, and Tempe seemed to have resumed her old habit of working extremely long hours.

Max cursed as he realized that the black car in front of him was turning toward an interstate ramp and heading west, thankful that he had a full tank of gas at the moment. Peter was up to something, and Max was certain it could be nothing good.

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Brennan's coworkers began to file in around eight, and Angela was surprised to see that the lights in her friend's office were still dark. Though she'd seen Brennan's car in the garage, she assumed that Booth must've driven her home at whatever ungodly hour he'd finally convinced her to leave the night before. She smiled approvingly and hoped that Brennan was using her time for pleasure rather than business at the moment. She traded quips with Hodgins, who was trying to talk her into having lunch with him later, and got started with her day.

By nine, Angela had noticed her friend's continued absence and realized that she must've been there all along, most likely in Limbo again. Even Booth wouldn't have been able to convince her to be _this_ late for work. Angela double checked the Bone Room as well as Brennan's office for good measure before heading down the steps to Bone Storage.

"Bren?"

 _Silence_. She wasn't there. Growing increasingly alarmed, Angela glanced down each corridor of storage containers before truly accepting that Brennan wasn't at work. She walked quickly to her office and picked up her phone.

"Booth," answered the voice on the other end.

"Hey, it's Angela. Is Brennan with you?" she asked, doing her best to keep her voice calm.

"No, she went in early today. We're having lunch later though." Booth shuffled the paperwork on his desk distractedly, and it was a moment before he realized why her question was odd. "Wait… aren't you at the lab?"

"Yeah, I got in about an hour ago, but her lights were off, so I figured that maybe you'd been able to convince her to come in at a reasonable hour. But I just checked, and she's not here. She's not answering her cell either."

"Did you check Limbo?" Booth asked quickly, rising from his desk and grabbing his suit jacket.

"Yeah."

"The Bone Room?"

"Of course."

"Shit," he cursed, feeling a cold wave of fear roll over his body from head to toe. "I'm on my way."

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Booth swore again as he speed-dialed Brennan's number for eleventh time. _Come on, baby, pick up._ _Voicemail. Fuck._ His mind ran in dizzying circles, worried at the growing list of possibilities. Aside from the obvious threats of Peter and whomever Max Keenan had been warning her about, he knew there was a reasonable chance that she'd done something reckless again.

Even though she'd promised to be careful, his brain couldn't help but drudge up images of her beating up a gang leader, running headlong through a dark tunnel toward an unknown figure, flying off to New Orleans alone and getting hurt, approaching a murder suspect without even considering the potential danger… Not to mention all of the places she'd traveled and things she'd done to put herself in danger at the government's request. Booth shuddered and attempted to focus, still redialing her cell.

When he pulled into the structure, he noticed immediately that her car was parked in its usual space. _She has to be here somewhere then._ _Unless…_ He pulled his SUV to a quick stop in the open space next to her car, and as soon as he opened the door, he heard her phone ringing. It echoed both through the cell he held to his own ear as well as off the concrete surfaces of the parking level.

Booth's panic escalated as he bent over and spotted it beneath her car. The screen indicated that there were twenty-two missed calls in addition to the one he'd just placed. He silenced both phones and ran for the doors, flashing his badge at the security desk and heading straight for the main security office.

He was breathing heavily, his adrenaline making everything seem sharper, and he instructed the security supervisor to pull the garage security tapes for the last four hours. The man began to argue with him, but Booth cut him off.

"Dr. Temperance Brennan is missing. Her phone was under her car, and she should've gotten in at six a.m. this morning." The words sounded worse outloud, and Booth's chest clenched painfully. "Send the files to Angela Montenegro in the Medico-Legal lab. _Right now!_ " He was shouting by the end of his command, and the supervisor looked stunned but nodded quickly.

Booth ran again toward the lab, praying silently that it wasn't real, that it was just another nightmare about his girlfriend disappearing, and he would wake up next to her any minute. When he reached Angela's office, he met her stricken expression and wondered what his own face looked like.

"Her car was in the garage, and her phone was lying underneath it," he told her urgently. "Security should be sending you the tapes from the last four hours. She should've gotten here around six…" _Like she's done all week_ , Booth thought with a groan. "Damn it."

"What do you think happened?"

"I think someone took her." His face crumpled miserably, and he accepted Angela's embrace, realizing that she had tears streaming down her face.

"I'm sorry, I should have tried to call her sooner. I should have checked when I came in. We would've known an hour ago…"

"Angela, it's not your fault, okay? Let's just find her. The sooner the better."

Angela's computer made a noise which signaled the arrival of the security footage, and Booth struggled to get a hold of himself. Panicking wouldn't help her. _Get it together, Booth,_ he chided himself. As Angela pulled up the video feed, Booth's hand found the chip in his pocket and gripped it tightly

"Okay, this is five minutes til six," she told him, slowing the footage down. "There's her car…"

They watched in horror as Brennan collapsed to the pavement and was quickly loaded into the trunk of a black sedan by a man wearing something like a ski mask. He stood over her in the trunk for a few moments, moving his arms methodically, but it wasn't clear what he was doing. The man shut both the trunk lid and Brennan's car door before speeding off. Though the quality of the video was a bit grainy, they could see that he'd been wearing black gloves of some sort. There would be no prints.

"Can you get another angle? Maybe a license plate number? And roll it back a little further, let's see where this guy came from."

 _Peter._ Mask or no mask, Booth was sure of it. Peter had kidnapped her. He cursed himself for leaving her vulnerable, for thinking that her father's presence made her safer. Booth watched through watery eyes as Angela pulled up the feed from another camera man had been crouching behind a different vehicle, and there had been no way Brennan could have seen him. This time, they could see that Brennan had been shot with something that had rendered her unconscious, and the man's methodical movements had been to subdue her hands and feet with what appeared to be zip ties.

Angela trotted quickly to the door and yelled for Hodgins before coming back to stand next to Booth.

"It's Peter," Booth said darkly.

"How do you know?"

"Because I know. _That_ is Peter St. James," he said, pointing an angry finger at the screen. Angela was doubtful.

"But how would he have even known that he'd get the opportunity? Brennan almost always carpools with you."

"She's been coming in at six every morning this week. Alone." Booth cursed again. "He must've been watching, probably for a while. Son of a bitch… I thought it was just her dad."

Brennan had told Angela about the Booth's theories the week before, and Angela recalled an alternative possibility.

"Booth, it could've been someone trying to use her to get to her dad though. Right? Wasn't he trying to warn her off the investigation because he thought she was in danger?"

"Yeah, but there's no proof he wasn't lying to cover his own ass, Angela."

"There's no proof that's Peter on the video either," she reasoned. He looked at her with incredulous frustration. She was really going to argue with him _now_? Angela continued, despite his obvious irritation. "Look, all I'm saying is that we have to make sure. What if we waste time going after Peter, and this guy isn't him?" she asked, pointing to the screen just as angrily as he had.

"What are you suggesting?"

"I need some footage of Peter to run a comparison. I can use the Mass Recognition Software." Booth recalled how well the technology had worked for them during the Charlie Sanders case and tried desperately to remember where Peter might have shown up on video. He was too consumed with his thoughts to notice when Hodgins entered the room and got the shorthand version of events from Angela.

 _The courthouse on the day of his trial should be a clear enough video… But there's no way I can get my hands on it quickly enough. It would have to be security footage from her parking garage, maybe outside her door when he broke in…_

"...But see how she falls? She was drugged with something, Hodgins. What could someone put in a dart like that to make her lose consciousness so quickly?"

"God, Ange… It could be any number of things. Ketamine, sodium pentothal… Actually Ketamine is probably a reasonable assumption because it's pretty easy to get a hold of. The dart gun could've been purchased anywhere that sells hunting supplies-"

"November eleventh of last year." Booth interrupted, not having paid attention to their discussion.

"What?" the squints asked in unison. Booth was making his way toward the door.

"That's one night that I know for _sure_ he was in her parking garage. It's when I found out that he'd been stalking her, after we got back from the case in Aurora. And a little before that, he'd picked the locks on her apartment at least once _after_ security put up a new camera in the hall. I'm gonna go get the tapes. Keep looking at the garage feed for anything useful, Ange, I'll be back as soon as I can."

Angela opened her mouth in shock at his quick departure, but she shook herself mentally and refocused on the feed. The control pad shook in her hands as she checked other angles, watching her best friend be kidnapped again and again. When she reached the point that she could no longer see the image through her tears, Hodgins pried the tablet carefully from her hands and pulled her into a hug.

He was worried for their friend as well, but the image of Booth pulling himself from his hospital bed to save his partner was at the forefront of his thoughts.

"It's gonna be okay, Ange. Booth will find her."

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While Zack and Hodgins swept the garage area for trace evidence, Booth drove at top speed toward Brennan's apartment. He utilized both the lights and siren, calling Charlie on his cell while he dodged in and out of traffic. He'd thought of another camera that had caught a good shot of Peter, and he gave his colleague a run-down of the situation.

"Listen, Charlie, I need you to find the interrogation footage from Peter ' arrest in November. The guy who was stalking Bones."

"Uh… Unfortunately that particular video was corrupted. Happens sometimes _when agents lose their tempers_ … You know how it is," he answered cryptically.

Booth cursed in frustration, recalling his own actions that night. He'd been seconds away from pummeling the guy into the wall when Charlie had interrupted and pulled him away. Either Charlie or someone else must've seen to it that the file was 'corrupted.'

"Shit… yeah, okay. Nevermind then," he said, making a sharp turn and narrowly avoiding another vehicle. The woman driving flipped him off, but Booth didn't see it. "Look, there's something else you can do for me."

"Name it, boss."

"Do some digging on this guy. Figure out where he could've taken her. Start with anyone he made friends with in jail, then look at family, then friends, _in that order_."

"You got it."

"Thanks, call me when you have something." Booth ended the call and went through the logic in his mind, certain he was right. If Peter was behind this, if he'd drugged and kidnapped Brennan, then he would've needed help from at least one person. Maybe to get his hands on whatever drug he'd used, maybe to have a place to take her… Either way, the logical choice was someone who had already done something illegal. If that doesn't pan out, then a family property would be the next most logical probability. With Peter's anger problems, Booth figured that he wasn't likely to have many friends.

He arrived at Brennan's apartment building and burst through the doors of the lobby, flashing his badge at the security guard. He recognized him as someone he'd spoken to in the past. _Jacob Something_ …

"Good morning, sir. Can I help you?"

Booth gave him a hasty summary of Brennan's kidnapping, watching the man's expression grow more alarmed by the second.

"I need security footage from the parking garage and the camera that was installed near her door. November eleventh of last year and maybe a month or so leading up to it."

Jacob nodded quickly and disappeared into an office around the corner. Booth paced with nervous energy while he waited. Every cell in his body seemed to be on high alert. _What else can I do, there has to be more…_ He briefly considered calling Russ but decided against it for the time being. There was nothing her brother could do at the moment, but Booth would make sure Angela or someone called him later if he couldn't do it himself.

He remembered the morning they'd had together. Making love to her in the shower, pestering her about skipping breakfast, making her promise to have lunch with him, kissing her goodbye… How could he have let this happen _again?_ One time could be a fluke, especially since the man who'd taken her had been a corrupt agent that no one had suspected. But this? Booth couldn't help but feel the guilt pressing down on him so heavily that it was a wonder he was still breathing beneath the weight of it.

It was his job to keep her safe, and he'd failed. He felt his self control slipping, and he took a trembling breath, struggling to think clearly and wanting to kick himself yet again when another memory flooded his mind. Peter at the hearing, stiff and shaking with anger. The unfiltered rage in his expression when he'd seen their joined hands. Himself, telling Brennan that he didn't feel better about the situation.

" _My gut says this isn't over."_ She had made a joke about the psychic abilities of his stomach, but she'd followed it with another sentiment entirely.

" _No matter what happens, I trust your judgment. I know you'll keep me safe. If Peter does plan to cause more trouble in the future, then the fact that I have you by my side will allow me to continue living my life without worrying about it."_

Booth fought to maintain his composure as he recalled her words. She'd trusted him, and he'd let her down.

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It didn't take Angela as long as usual to find the footage they needed, but it was still too long for Booth. He paced her office like a caged tiger: irritable, surly, and stressed. The squints managed to watch him closely while still giving him his space. He'd gone over the details a hundred times, prayed a dozen prayers for her safety, and informed his boss of the situation. He'd told Cullen that when he did get a lead on her location, there was a possibility that he would need a chopper to get there-not to mention some backup. Cullen had assured him that he would have what he needed as soon as he needed it.

Angela had tried the garage footage first, skipping back to the date Booth had specified. Unfortunately, Peter never left his car on that occasion, and though they could see his face in the video, what Angela really needed was an image of him standing or walking. It took her a little while longer to locate Peter on the feed from the other camera, since she didn't have an exact date to work with.

"Gotcha," Angela said darkly, apparently speaking to herself rather than the others in the room. They all watched grimly as she compared the man in the video to the one who had taken Brennan, and Booth cursed vehemently when she made the match. He'd been right.

"Alright, good job, Ange," Booth told her, pleased that he'd already had Charlie working on the research for over an hour. Once again he was speaking as he left the room. "I'm headed to the Hoover. If you hear anything or figure out anything, call me immediately. I'll do the same."

When he'd gone, the team looked around at each other worriedly and refocused on their tasks. Hodgins was running hair and particulate samples while Zack researched the possible drugs and dosages that could have been used to achieve the effects shown on the security footage, as well as what possible side effects they could produce. Angela continued to comb through the feeds from each setting, looking for anything they might have missed.

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Brennan awoke slowly, feeling extremely strange. She couldn't seem to move her limbs, as though they were weighted down by something heavy, and though she could open her eyes, she saw nothing but darkness. She was dizzy, disoriented, and somewhat numb, and she fought against the nausea that threatened to overtake her. It was noisy and hot. _So hot._

She had the sensation that her eyes were crossed, though she knew they weren't. A cold sweat bathed her body in spite of the oppressive heat, and nothing physical felt real. It was though she was confined to her own mind, with a body she could sense but not control. And then, as she reached a slightly higher level of awareness, one thing became excruciatingly clear.

 _She was in a trunk_.

Brennan began to hyperventilate immediately, and from that moment, she was no longer a self-sufficient, savvy forensic anthropologist. She was not a best-selling author who knew for certain that she was loved. She was not Dr. Temperance Brennan.

She was sixteen again, locked in the trunk of a car for breaking a dish. Her calm rationality was completely absent, and she couldn't understand why she was unable to move. Why couldn't she kick her feet or beat her hands against the inside of the lid? When were they going to let her out?

She began to cry in heaving, terrified sobs, struggling to summon her voice, to move her mouth…

"H-Hello? Please let me out… I didn't-I didn't mean to break it. I'm s-sorry. I'm really sorry. Please… It's hard to breathe… I don't want to d-die. I didn't mean to break anything, please..."

Peter turned off the radio at the sound of her voice but was barely able to decipher her words over the road noise. He wasn't sure what she was saying and didn't much care. If she was conscious when they arrived at their destination, it would mean that he'd have to dose her again. He'd been unsure that he'd gotten the ketamine dosage right in the first place, and he'd been hoping that another shot wouldn't be necessary…

Brennan continued to plead tearfully with anyone who might be listening, begging Mr. Campbell, her foster father, to let her out. After an indeterminable amount of time, she felt a change in her body. She could move again. Whatever paralysis that had come over her was lifting, and she kicked her feet repeatedly, the force of each kick increasing gradually. Her ankles were tied together, though she couldn't remember when that had happened. When she tried to move her hands, she realized that they were bound as well.

She began to sob harder, and her cries slowly morphed into outright screams of terror. She kicked and screamed for all she was worth, shouting for help so loudly into the confined space that her own ears ached with the volume.

Peter cursed, swerving dangerously off the road and back on, and he shouted back at her, telling her to shut up and be still. Whether due to the excessive volume of her own voice or the fact that she was not herself, Brennan couldn't hear him. If she'd been in her right mind, she would've realized that the drug she'd been injected with was causing hallucinations. She would've done her best to remain calm, to search for the latch that she knew full well was required to be installed in every vehicle after 2002. She had actually made donations to the organizations which had lobbied for the law. If she'd known who or where she was, she might have been able to focus long enough to talk to her captor, to attempt to reason with him.

But Brennan could do none of those things. Her pulse was racing, and she couldn't pull enough air into her lungs to think about anything else. The darkness of the trunk was becoming steadily darker. She was sixteen years old, her family had abandoned her, and she was going to die.

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 **That last scene was heart-breaking to write. :( Sorry-not-sorry for the cliffhanger though, mwahaha. Click that button and tell me what you think!**


	29. Chapter 29

**This is it, folks! You weren't worried I was gonna leave it there, were you? I would never do that. More notes at the bottom. Enjoy!**

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Chapter 29

Max had followed Peter westward from DC, then southwest. He knew they had to be nearing the Virginia state line by this point, but still they continued to drive. He'd stopped for gas once, behaving in a completely natural manner and not seeming even remotely concerned that someone might be on his tail. Max had filled up as well, averting his gaze for the most part and blending in as only Max Keenan could do.

At five hours into the impromptu road trip, things began to get interesting. The black sedan in front of him swerved wildly on the road for several minutes, varying its speed erratically between ten miles over and five miles under the posted speed limit. Max had no idea what to make it, but after a short while, Peter's driving returned to normal, and he was taking an off-ramp. They'd just crossed into Tennessee.

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Booth was doing everything possible to maintain his sanity. She'd been missing nearly six hours now, and every additional second that ticked by on the clock seemed to cause him physical pain. The particulate analysis Hodgins had run had turned up nothing out of the ordinary, and the only hair they'd found had belonged to Brennan. There were no prints, there was no blood, and no one had been around to witness her abduction. The license plate on the car had been stolen, and although Charlie had enlisted the help of several other agents in his efforts to dig into Peter's criminal and familial connections, no one had found anything conclusive.

A few of Peter's former fellow inmates owned properties, but none of the ones they'd checked into were vacant or were near enough to be a plausible option. Angela was still going over the footage, not only from that morning but other days as well. Peter had been following Brennan for quite some time, but after a while Angela realized that someone else had too. Though the face was always obscured by shadow or a hood of some sort, Angela felt fairly certain the unknown observer was male and smaller in stature than Peter. She didn't know what to make of it, but perhaps Booth would…

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After six hours on the road, Max was relieved that Peter seemed to have arrived at his intended destination. It was an older house in a sparsely populated neighborhood which boasted more greenery than most suburban neighborhoods. The houses they passed were mostly of mid-century construction and were set far enough apart to ensure a good deal of privacy. When Peter turned into the driveway of one of them, Max continued down the road a little ways. He parked his car out of sight of the house and crept toward it cautiously, taking cover behind a row of hedges and watching curiously as Peter climbed out of the car.

The house had no garage, which surprised Max. If _he'd_ been up to something unsavory, there was no way he would allow so much exposure. But Peter seemed to be a rather arrogant man. The man had been tailed for six hours and didn't seem to have noticed. And now, as he strolled around the car to the trunk, he wasn't even checking his surroundings for observers.

Max shook his head in derision but remained focused on the scene, and in the next moment, all thoughts of Peter's naivete had fled. _Tempe_ … Max felt his blood pressure skyrocket as he watched the man open the trunk of the car and lift his unconscious daughter out of it. Her form was completely limp in Peter's arms, and he managed to close the lid of the trunk before entering the house.

Max gritted his teeth with fury and made his way back to his vehicle. He had noted the address when passing the house the first time, and he hesitated only a moment before deciding what to do next.

He inhaled deeply to calm himself a little and turned on his cell phone.

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Booth glanced at his phone, hoping it was Angela calling with something useful, and he scowled at the unknown number on the display before flipping it open.

"Booth."

"She's at 716 Cheshire Boulevard. Kingsport, Tennessee," the responding voice said slowly. "Repeat it."

Booth stopped dead in his pacing, and his eyes widened hopefully. The voice was familiar. He parroted the address back, and repeated it a third time in his mind.

"Good. Hurry."

" _Is she alive?"_

The only response he received was a dial tone, and Booth closed his phone with a shaking hand, already sprinting toward Cullen's office.

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Max hung up and turned the phone back off, cringing emotionally. He hadn't been able to bring himself to say aloud that he wasn't entirely sure whether his daughter _was_ alive. He wanted to believe that she had been merely unconscious, and he tried to reassure himself that if Peter had killed her, he wouldn't be going to the trouble of tying her hands and feet and hiding her in a house four hundred miles from her home.

Max greatly hoped that Tempe had been unconscious _before_ going into the trunk. He could only imagine the trauma it would have caused had she been awake. As he crept low around the property to investigate possible ways into the house, he thought about how much his daughter had been through in her life. _Too much_.

Max had long since stolen her social services file and learned of the atrocities she had suffered at the hands of unfit foster parents. He had been horrified by the contents of that file, and they had haunted him for years. _Still haunted him_.

For one thing, the person her caseworkers had described hadn't sounded anything like his daughter. She hadn't been one to make things up or lie to get attention, and she _certainly_ hadn't been the type to pursue sexual relationships with older men or even boys her own age. At the time, Max had wondered if the absence of her parents could have changed her so greatly, but he'd watched her enough at college to believe that she hadn't changed in _that_ kind of way. If she'd been interested in sleeping around, she'd have done it once she was on her own, but up to that point, Max had never seen her give any guy the time of day, no matter how many had wanted her attention. In fact, the more aggressively they'd pursued her, the more she had pulled away.

Tempe had made allegations of abuse; one of them had even been a claim of sexual assault, but they were nearly always 'investigated and found to be false.' Max knew his daughter wouldn't have lied about something like that, but the complaints had gone nowhere. There had been, however, two reports of confirmed abuse. One bastard had pushed her down a flight of stairs and beat her so badly that she'd needed emergency medical treatment for a concussion, a sprained wrist, and a cracked rib. The other report had described an incident in which his daughter had been locked in the trunk of a car for two full days. A neighbor had finally heard her screaming and gotten her out. She'd been hospitalized for dehydration and exposure and sent to a new home within a week. There had been photos attached to both reports, and even now, it made his blood boil to remember them. The worst thing about them had been her eyes. After the beating incident, her eyes had looked empty, as though she hadn't been truly alive behind them. However, in the photos that had been taken following the trunk incident, her eyes hadn't been merely alive-they'd been frantic, panicked, and riddled with anxiety. He'd read that after both incidents, she'd been sent to therapists-both of whom she had refused to speak to. Her caseworkers had described her as difficult, obstinate, defiant, and withdrawn...

A voice from inside the house drew his attention sharply, and Max paused below a window to listen.

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Booth had been in constant motion from the moment Max had hung up on him. He didn't bother with a trace, knowing that Max would've turned the phone off immediately. Cullen had instructed him to grab a couple of agents on his way to meet the chopper at the South Capitol Street Heliport. Booth would have liked to take a full five-man SWAT team, but there was limited space on the helicopter, so he'd settled for two of the best marksman they had. Before leaving, he'd instructed Charlie to call him with any and all information he could find on the address 'the tipster' had given him.

By one p.m., the chopper was in the air, and Booth called Angela to give her an update.

"It's Booth," he announced loudly over the noise of the rotors. "I know where she is, and I'm on my way there."

"How did you figure it out?" Angela asked in surprise.

"Anonymous tip."

"But… how? Her disappearance wasn't reported to anyone…"

"Trust me, the tip is good," he replied, glancing furtively at his companions. They didn't appear to be paying attention, but he still didn't want to announce that Brennan's fugitive father had called him on his FBI-funded cell phone.

"Okay, well listen… I've been going over the garage footage, both from here and her apartment building, and there's more to it than what we originally saw."

"What do you mean?"

"There was someone else watching her. I haven't been able to get a good image of a face, but he's smaller in stature than Peter, and he was most definitely watching the night you saw Peter in her garage. Just watch your back, okay? It's possible Peter has some help."

"Don't worry, Ange, I think I know what that's about. I'll explain it later, okay? Either way, I've got backup."

"Alright, Booth. Be careful, and call me as soon as you know _anything_." Booth agreed and hung up, trying for the hundredth time that day to slow his racing heart.

 _Hold on, Bones… I'm coming._

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Even if Brennan could have heard him at that precise moment, she wouldn't have comprehended his words. Her panic attack in the trunk had stolen her consciousness again, and she was just now coming back around. She was still dizzy and extremely disoriented. The room seemed to spin when she opened her eyes, but she was relieved that she no longer appeared to be in the trunk.

This did not mean, however, that she could move more freely. She was in a damp basement, which was lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling, and her hands were bound behind her on the opposite side of a support post that was pressing into her back. Brennan was sitting on the dirty floor with her legs out straight, bound at the ankles. She shifted fractionally, testing the strength of whatever was keeping her wrists tied together. Whatever it was refused to loosen, but the issue could also be that her arms didn't quite move properly. Something was wrong with her shoulder.

Her mind was foggy, and the more she tried to inventory her surroundings, the more she realized how difficult it was to simply think in a straight line. Brennan didn't feel at all like herself, which frightened her even more than the fact that someone had tied her up against her will. What was wrong with her brain…?

A movement in her peripheral had her on high alert once more, and she trembled at the sight of the man who had risen from his seat on the basement steps and begun to stride toward her. When she looked at him, she didn't see Peter . She saw Jack Campbell: the man who had locked her in his trunk at sixteen and left her to die.

Her hallucination looked back at her with hatred as he came closer, and she began to plead with him once more, fresh tears spilling over her lashes.

"Please don't hurt me," she sobbed. "I'm s-sorry. I'll be careful, I promise. I won't break anything else. I didn't mean to, sir. The water was too hot..."

As Brennan continued to cry, Peter looked down at her in consternation. _What the hell is she talking about?_ Maybe he _had_ gotten the dosage wrong after all. But she had to come down at some point, he reasoned. He would just have to wait her out. There was no sense in trying to talk to her while she was so out of it.

The minutes passed slowly, and Brennan's eyes darted wildly at things only she could see and at people who were real only to her. She spoke to her visions as ardently as if they were truly there, and thanks to the effects of the ketamine on her sense of reality, her body's reaction was weighted toward fear rather than courage.

She cowered and shook beneath the cold stare of the Salvadoran man who had held her captive, begging him not to kill her, promising to go back home and leave her work behind her. The image of the man then shifted to yet another foster parent. Mr. Hammel's beatings had been precise and calculating, never leaving enough of a mark to prove that he'd done anything to her, and the psychological abuse had been worse. She pleaded with him not to hit her again, promised to be good…

The more Peter listened, the more concerned he became that she wasn't coming out of it. Nearly an hour had passed, and she hadn't stopped talking to thin air since she'd first opened her eyes. He stomped up the stairs, frustrated. How was she supposed to realize that she belonged with him if she didn't even know he was there? Peter decided that perhaps if he could get her to eat or drink something, she might detox a bit faster.

He made a sandwich and a glass of water for her quickly and headed back down the basement steps, unaware of the eyes that watched his every step.

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"How much longer?" Booth asked the pilot anxiously.

"Maybe another hour," the man replied.

 _Damn it_ … It was taking too long. He needed to be there _now_ , to see that she was alright. _And to put a bullet in Peter's head_ , he thought savagely. As Booth watched the Virginia landscape roll beneath them, he imagined what he might find when he finally got to her.

 _Bones…_

Was she hurt? Bleeding? Unconscious? ... _Dead?_ Booth shook himself inwardly. If he let himself think that, he would lose it completely. His mind had been working frantically to determine the odds that Peter would actually kill Brennan, and although it didn't fit the behavior pattern, there was simply no predicting a person who was insane enough to do something like this. Booth checked his rifle for the fourth time in an hour, methodically verifying the ammunition and assembly.

 _Almost there,_ he told himself, deliberately taking a deep, steadying breath. _Almost there._

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One of the back bedroom windows of the house had been left unlocked, and Max had climbed through it quietly. He'd walked slowly toward the kitchen, eyeing the doorway that he knew led to the basement. Peter had closed it behind him, and the only way to handle things properly would be to get the jump on him.

Max had seen him taking food downstairs, so he was reassured at least that the guy didn't seem intent on killing her or even starving her. However, the things he'd heard as his daughter's pleading, broken voice had reached his ears had left him shaken. She'd begged for her life multiple times, begged not to be hurt any more, begged to be released from some sort of captivity… It was clear that she wasn't in her right mind, but whether that was due to emotional trauma or whatever drug she'd been subdued with, Max didn't know.

He waited near the doorway, prepared to take care of Peter the next time he walked through it.

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Brennan's tortured gaze rested upon a pile of blankets and other miscellaneous items that were stacked in the corner nearest to her, but instead of a pile of junk, she envisioned her mother. Christine Brennan looked back at her daughter with kind eyes, and for just a few moments, Brennan felt comforted by the sight of her. She continued to cry, and when she found her voice again, she made a different sort of plea.

"Mom," she whimpered. "I'm so sorry for arguing with you that day… I didn't mean to make you angry, Mom. I didn't want you to leave. _Please don't leave me again,_ " she sobbed brokenly.

"Hey…" Peter said gruffly. "You should eat something."

Brennan's head jerked toward him fearfully, once again not seeing him for who he truly was. She screamed in terror and tried futilely to move away from him. The way she was bound made it impossible of course, and her injured shoulder became more painful than it had been when she'd awoken.

"Come on, Tempe, just take a bite…" He tried to offer her the sandwich, but she merely screamed louder and shouted at him to leave her alone. Peter sighed, frustrated, and sat down to wait again.

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Over the next half hour or so, Brennan came slowly back to the real world, recognizing that what she'd thought was her mother was in fact a pile of inanimate objects. The pain in her shoulder, wrists, and ankles increased exponentially, and her respirations accelerated in spite of her efforts to remain calm. When she attempted to turn her head to look around the room, the movement felt delayed and much slower than usual, as though her body was taking too long to process the signals from her brain.

She struggled in vain to recall how she'd ended up in a damp cellar, apparently drugged to the point of hallucination, and she wondered anxiously how long she'd been gone. What time was it? What _day_ was it?

Her eyes came to rest on Peter and widened in surprise. His face was not the one she'd been expecting. In fact, Brennan would have thought it would have been more likely for her to have been assaulted by someone she had angered in the course of her work rather than an ex-boyfriend with an anger management problem. He looked a bit different, she realized through her mental fog. Several bones in his face had been broken since the last time she saw him up close, and she smirked inwardly, satisfied that his time behind bars had been unpleasant.

Peter gazed back at her speculatively, wondering if she was lucid now. Her eyes seemed to have lost the clouded, dazed look they'd possessed since she'd regained consciousness.

"Tempe?"

Brennan scowled back at him suspiciously for a moment, then rolled her eyes. She had no interest in talking to him. With a second glance around the room, she recalled the last time she'd been in a similar position, and Brennan found that she was grateful there were no dogs this time. She just needed to wait for Booth. He had come for her then, and he would come for her now.

"Tempe, do you know who I am now?" His voice was cautious, as though he were speaking to a small child. Yet another roll of her eyes and the setting of her jaw answered his question. "I'm glad you're yourself again," he told her, smiling awkwardly as though she _wasn't_ restrained and coming down from a drug that _he_ had used to subdue her.

She pursed her lips stubbornly, refusing to even look at him.

"Oh, come on now," he persisted. "I'll untie you soon. I just need you to accept the truth, Tempe. We belong together. I know you'll see it too if you just give me time to prove it. We're meant to be together."

Brennan fumed and tried to remain silent. _He thinks if he keeps me here long enough, I'll want him back? Is he insane?_ Engaging with him was a bad idea; she knew that. And yet, she wanted nothing more than to set him straight.

"Booth will come. And when he does, _he'll shoot you,"_ she said coldly, still avoiding eye contact. Peter ground his teeth in irritation and felt his pulse quicken at her words.

"I highly doubt that. See, we're not _anywhere near_ Booth right now. Even if he's figured out by now that you're gone, there's no way he would even think to look for you here. _We're four hundred miles from DC_ , Tempe." He smiled in satisfaction at the shock in her features, and he continued. "You just need to be away from him for a while; you'll see. You're supposed to be with _me_."

 _He was right about one thing: Booth would have no way of knowing where to find her._

"Fuck you, Peter," she spat. Brennan met his eyes and saw that they had grown darker with his anger, and he clenched his fists spasmodically. The last of the ketamine in her system sent her pulse skyrocketing and made her breaths even more labored, but her expression showed no fear now. "Even if I didn't have Booth, there's no way I'd _ever_ go back to you. I would never let you touch me again."

Her own anger was rising, and she attempted once more to pull free from her bindings. Brennan winced involuntarily, realizing that the pain in her left shoulder was due to dislocation. She couldn't remember when that had happened. Peter was seething at her words and snickered cruelly at her show of pain.

"You know," he said with quiet rage, squatting down to bring his face within inches of hers, "I think you need to learn a thing or two about who's in charge here. Cause it sure as hell isn't you."

He brought his hands to the neckline of her shirt and tore the material away from her body. His hands groped her breasts roughly, and she twisted harder against her restraints. Brennan fought the urge to scream when next he plunged a hand between her closed thighs, pushing his fingers hard against her. Peter smirked as she writhed even more frantically in an attempt to get away from him, and he couldn't resist the urge to kiss her.

He leaned forward and ground his punishing lips against hers savagely, and Brennan's too-slow reflexes were momentarily stunned. But when he tried to force his tongue into her mouth, she bit him sharply, and he pulled back with a growl. Peter's fury reached its limit, and he backhanded her hard across the cheek.

A shock of pain jolted through her head, beginning with her face, then moving to a more concentrated point where the back of her head had rebounded into the support post behind her. Brennan struggled to open her eyes only to see that Peter had gotten to his feet. He aimed a kick at her rib cage, and Brennan knew immediately that he'd cracked at least two of her ribs.

"Bastard," she sputtered weakly. Peter snarled again and delivered a close-fisted punch to her head, once again knocking her skull backward into the post. He bounded back up the stairs, leaving her alone again.

The whole thing had taken seconds, but as her vision began to darken once more, time stretched infinitely. Her last conscious thought was of Booth.

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Max hurried down the basement steps a few minutes later, knowing from the things he'd overheard her saying that his daughter probably wouldn't recognize him. It was worth the risk to make sure she was still breathing.

She was unconscious when he reached her anyway, and he was relieved to see that she was definitely still alive. He stared in shock at the bruises forming on her beautiful face and wished he'd had time to torture Peter before he'd killed him.

Max squatted down to touch her hair gently, pressing his lips softly to her forehead and pulling her torn shirt back into place. He was about to take his pocket knife to the zip ties that bound her when he heard it.

 _A helicopter_.

Max sighed with regret and kissed her head once more.

"Bye, baby girl. I'll see you soon."

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Booth's eyes scanned the property as the chopper lowered slowly onto the lawn. The black sedan was in the driveway, but there was no sign of Max or anyone else. He jumped out of the helicopter and signaled the other two agents to help him scout the property. It took only a couple of minutes, and once the area had been cleared, Booth led them into the house quietly. His instincts were on high alert, listening for any sound that might lead him to Brennan.

Peter was lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of his own blood which seemed to have come from a stab wound just behind his right ear. Booth motioned the other agents to check the rest of the house, and when they had stepped out of the room, he noticed that the door next to him was slightly open, and he pulled the handle to peek around it. _Basement…_

"Clear!" came two voices from other parts of the house, and Booth crept down the basement steps slowly, his heart in his throat.

 _Oh God, Bones…_

She was there, sitting on the concrete floor with her hands bound behind her around a metal support post. He was at her side in a fraction of a second, laying his rifle on the ground and feeling for a pulse.

"Bones! Bones, come on, baby. Bones…" Tears streamed from his eyes without his knowledge, and he silently begged God not to take her from him. " _Please,_ baby. Come on, wake up. Come back to me, Bones…"

She heard him. His terrified voice penetrated the layers of pain and blackness that had enveloped her, and she struggled to find him, to open her eyes… _Was he really there? Or was the voice she heard just another product of hallucination?_

Brennan groaned and winced in pain, and Booth cried out in relief at the first signs of movement, leaving feather-light kisses all over her face.

"Bones," he sobbed brokenly, "I'm here, baby. You're gonna be okay." His hands shook as he cut through the zip ties at her wrists and ankles, and when he brought her arms back around from behind the post, she cried loudly at the pain of her dislocated shoulder. Booth had suffered the same injury more than once in his life, whether through some sport or at the hands of his own father, and he moved her arm slowly to rest at her side. Booth shouted to his men upstairs that they needed an ambulance, and they yelled back that one was already on the way.

"I'm sorry, Bones. I'm so sorry. I got you, baby. I'm gonna get you out of here…"

"Booth?" Her voice was thin and weak, and he could see that she was struggling to focus her eyes through her pain. She had a large bruise on the left side of her face, and a slightly smaller one on the other.

"I'm here, baby. Tell me where it hurts."

"Head… chest… shoulder…"

Booth looked down at her chest and only then noticed the state of her clothing. His anger flared even more intensely at the thought of that bastard's hands on her: beating her, touching her… There didn't seem to be any open wounds to her chest, but Booth was hesitant to go poking around.

"Ribs cracked," she said roughly. "Kicked me…"

Booth let out a growl and eased her carefully to lay across his lap. Brennan gasped at the movement but then relaxed into his arms, gazing up at him with an expression he couldn't quite decipher. It was… _disbelief?_

"Booth… Are you really here?"

"Yeah, baby, I'm here. I'm _really_ here. I love you so much, Bones. You're gonna be alright. An ambulance is coming…"

Brennan wanted to ask how he'd found her, but the pain and lightheadedness she was feeling made it difficult to focus. He continued to hold her, making promises and reassurances, and telling her how very much he loved her.

When the paramedics arrived, they checked her over carefully and loaded her into an ambulance. Booth rode along, and as they pulled away, he saw a coroner's van arriving at the house. He didn't spare a second thought for Peter's death, other than to be pleased that the matter had been taken care of in a way that wouldn't cost him his badge.

Once the initial rushes of terror and relief had passed, Booth was able to get better control of his emotions. He held her hand as they wheeled her into an ER bay at Holston Valley Medical Center, and when the staff directed him to the waiting room, he was able to refuse without shouting at anyone.

Though Brennan was conscious, she seemed to be too disoriented to respond to the questions they were asking her, so he did his best to answer what he could. Name, birthdate, medical history that he knew of, and the details he knew regarding what had happened to her… He explained that she'd been drugged with something when she was taken, and that she was more dazed than the last time she'd been injured. Booth's memories of her condition after Kenton's attempt on her life were glazed over by his own pain level at the time, but he didn't recall her being this disoriented. The staff assured him that they would run a tox screen that should tell them what was in her system.

Booth wasn't permitted to come with her to radiology, so he paced anxiously and took the opportunity to call Angela.

"She's okay, Ange," he told her as soon as she answered.

"Oh thank God. What happened? Where are you?"

"We're in Kingsport, Tennessee. And she…she's hurt, but she's gonna be okay. I'm waiting for them to finish her x-rays right now."

"Hurt how?" she pressed.

"They haven't given me all of the information yet, but it looks like…two cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a concussion, and a lot of bruising to her face. I don't know if there's anything else yet."

"Oh God," Angela said, her voice thick with emotion. "Did you catch Peter?"

Booth's eyes and tone shifted darkly.

"Didn't need to. He was dead when we got there."

"What? How?"

"I have a theory, but it's not something I want to talk about on the phone. I'll text you and let you know what the doctors say, alright?"

"Of course. Thanks, Booth."

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By the time Brennan was finished in radiology, her mind had become quite a bit clearer. Unfortunately, this meant her pain was also significantly stronger, but she refused the offer of pain medication. The last thing she wanted was to be unconscious again, and her eyes darted nervously in all directions as the wheeled her back to the ER, looking for Booth.

As soon as her bed was back in place, he was at her side, and she gave him the best smile she could manage, relieved that he was really, truly there.

"Bones…" His voice was pained, and she could easily read the stress and guilt on his face.

"I'm okay," she tried to reassure him, and he cringed a little at her words. _She_ was reassuring _him_? _Only Bones,_ he thought ruefully.

"God, baby… I was so scared. I'm so sorry, Bones."

"Why are _you_ sorry? It wasn't your fault. I don't really remember much of what happened, but I know that Peter's the one who hurt me. Not you."

"I swore I'd keep you safe. You _trusted_ me to keep you safe from him. _And I failed_ ," he whispered miserably.

"Stop that. You came for me. I knew you would."

Booth opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by the appearance of the ER doctor. Dr. Layton smiled at the pair reassuringly and glanced over Brennan's chart.

"You were pretty disoriented when you came in, Dr. Brennan. How do you feel now?"

"Better, but still...strange. The pain is worse, which I presume indicates that whatever I was drugged with is leaving my system?"

"Yes, your tox screen was positive for ketamine. If you were injected only once, at 6 a.m. this morning, then the dose had to have been quite large. You were extremely lucky that you didn't overdose."

Booth shuddered and closed his eyes momentarily, offering up another prayer of thanks.

"Would that dosage have caused hallucinations?" Brennan asked curiously.

"Most definitely. As well as temporary paralysis, dizziness, numbness, nausea…and unconsciousness, of course."

Brennan nodded slightly, and her eyes grew distant for a moment, trying to determine what had been real. Booth's eyes had widened a bit at her question, and he shook his head, understanding now why Brennan hadn't believed that he was truly with her at first. He wondered sadly what else she had seen.

"Now, your scans-"

"I'd prefer to read them myself if you don't mind."

Booth released a breath of relief and smiled genuinely for the first time since Brennan had left the apartment that morning. _That_ was his Bones.

"Certainly, but we need to reduce your shoulder dislocation sooner rather than later, and I'd like to do that now. So very quickly… In addition to the shoulder displacement, you have linear fractures to your eighth and ninth ribs, bruising on the left zygomatic, and a severe concussion to the occipital. Nothing that won't heal on its own, but you're definitely going to be here a day or two while we monitor the head trauma and your complete detoxification from the ketamine."

"And the head CT?" she asked.

"All clear. Just a concussion."

Brennan would have nodded her understanding of his words, but her head hurt too badly to move it again. The doctor seemed to understand, however, and he turned to Booth with his eyebrows raised.

"Sir, you'll need to go out to the waiting area while we put her shoulder back into…"

Booth was shaking his head adamantly, and his expression was dark. He'd be damned if he was leaving her side for one minute, but before he could say as much, Brennan spoke up.

"Agent Booth is my emergency medical proxy. He stays," she announced. Dr. Layton looked as though he would've liked to argue about it, but he accepted his patient's wishes and instructed Booth to at least step back so that they could work on getting Brennan's pain under control.

"No, I don't want anything else. No more drugs, please…"

"Bones, you need something to manage your pain," he chided her, touching a hand carefully to her forehead. "Even if it makes you sleep, you won't be alone. I'm not going anywhere, baby. I promise."

Brennan regarded him quietly for a moment before whispering, "Okay."

"Thank you." Booth backed out of the way then, and Brennan was soon sleeping deeply under the effects of the morphine. He averted his eyes and winced at the sound of her shoulder popping into place. He was thankful that she had agreed to the medication, as he could only imagine how much more pain she would be in otherwise.

Within another hour, Brennan had been moved to a private room and was still resting comfortably. Booth texted Angela with the update he'd promised, and a helpful nurse brought him some dinner. He picked at his food morosely, his eyes darting repeatedly back to Brennan's bruised and swollen face every few seconds.

Now that he'd had some time to think about it, he realized how very much he owed Max Keenan. Brennan may have given him credit for coming to save her, but if Max hadn't followed Peter from DC and called him with the location, she would still be in that basement right now. Injured, drugged, and at the mercy of that bastard.

Booth knew full well who had killed Peter, but he wasn't about to offer the local cops any help in figuring it out. As far as he was concerned, Max had finally done something right by his daughter, and Booth almost wished he'd had the opportunity to thank the man in person. If Max hadn't taken Peter out, then Booth certainly would have. He had mixed feelings about his father-in-law-of-sorts, particularly since Booth was a man who didn't condone murder. It was literally his job to go after murderers, to see to it that they paid for their crimes, but he knew that tracking down Max Keenan would be far more difficult for him now.

His guilt still plagued him, and although Booth knew what Brennan would say if she could hear his thoughts, he couldn't help but be angry with himself. He couldn't help but feel that he'd failed her, that he'd left her open and exposed. He'd grown complacent about her safety for just a moment, assuming that Max was the only one watching her… _And look what happened,_ he thought achingly. Booth still didn't even know the whole story, but he was sure that when she could finally tell him, he would feel even worse. He wouldn't blame her at all if she were angry with him… But she wouldn't be. Brennan didn't even take her own safety seriously, and he knew she would never be as upset about his mistake as he was.

Booth watched her for hours as she continued to sleep, and he wished that the narrow bed were big enough to fit both of them. In that moment, he'd never wanted to hold someone so badly. He wanted to take her home… _Home,_ he thought vaguely. _Will she want to be at her apartment or mine? We really should talk about living together…_

His eyes grew steadily heavier as he softly caressed the hand he held. She had an angry red stripe over the top of her wrist, and he pressed a careful kiss to the raw skin. Booth laid his head on the side of her mattress, keeping her hand near his face and whispering a soft goodnight that she couldn't have heard.

"I love you, Bones."

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Brennan began to stir in the early hours of the morning, and she smiled at the sight of Booth's head resting on her bed. He was positioned almost identically to the way she had slept the night he'd been injured by the bomb in her refrigerator. His lips were touching her fingertips, and she tried to keep them still so as to not disturb him. She had so many questions for him, but for the moment, she was content to simply watch him sleep.

Booth had saved her life. _Again_. She was in awe of his dedication to her, of his endless regard for her safety. It was so profound that even now, when she was lying in a hospital bed and recovering from physical assault, his mere presence made her feel completely safe and secure. He really did love her, just as much as she loved him, and she'd never been more grateful for his love than she was in that precise moment.

He groaned just then, starting to wake up, and she realized how much his back was going to hurt after spending all night hunched over at her bedside. She wiggled the fingers he still held pressed to his lips, and his eyes shot open suddenly. Booth sat up quickly-too quickly by the look of his pained expression-and rested his eyes upon hers.

"Bones," he breathed, acute relief in his voice. "You're awake."

"You sound surprised by that," she replied softly, smiling carefully in spite of her bruised face. Booth smiled back and took a quick visual inventory of her injuries. He couldn't see her ribs beneath her hospital gown of course, but she seemed to breathing more easily than last night. She was no longer wincing each time she moved her head. The swelling in her face had come down significantly, and were it not for the colorful bruises on each of her cheekbones, she would've looked quite normal.

"Satisfied?" she asked, managing to smirk a little.

"Almost." Booth stood up and leaned over to brush his lips gently over hers, and she kissed him back sweetly. She kept her eyes closed even after he had returned to his seat, and a contented smile curved her lips upward. Booth sighed, feeling another surge of relief. She really would be okay.

"I was so scared, baby," he whispered. "It didn't feel real at first, and when it finally sunk in, I'd never been more terrified. It was like one of my nightmares-the ones where you simply disappear without a trace, and I never find you…"

"But you _did_ find me," she reminded him, raising her hand to his stubbly cheek.

"Not me, Bones," he contradicted with a shake of his head.

"What do you mean?"

"I… Well, first, what do _you_ remember?" he asked hesitantly. Brennan was silent for a moment while she tried to filter from her memories what she knew to be real.

"Not a lot, honestly. I remember pulling my car into the garage at work and getting out, then...nothing. Until later," she finished darkly. "I think I must've woken up before we stopped, but I don't think I understood what was happening. That must've been when the hallucinations started, because it felt more like one of my nightmares about the first time I was in a trunk…"

Booth wore a tormented expression, and he brought her hand to his lips, kissing her fingertips before speaking into them.

"Oh, God I'm so sorry, Bones. I'm _so_ sorry."

"It's okay, Booth. I'm okay. Anyway, I don't remember getting to the house, or how my shoulder became dislocated. I realize now that I must've been hallucinating for quite a while. I saw two of my former foster parents, and the man who captured me in El Salvador… And my mom."

"You saw your mom?"

"Yes. Later I realized that she hadn't really been there, and that's when I saw Peter. He was probably there all along, but I didn't really see him clearly until then. That part I remember vividly. He...he said that he and I were meant to be together, and he thought that if he just kept me away from you for long enough that I'd agree with him."

"Jesus, what a psycho," Booth replied grimly.

"Yes," she agreed. "I told him that you would come. And that when you did, you'd shoot him. He said that we were four hundred miles from home and that you'd never find us."

 _He was very nearly right,_ Booth thought angrily, but he didn't interrupt.

"I…I"m afraid I let my irritation get the better of me. I should have just kept my mouth shut and ignored him," she confessed, looking ashamed.

"What did you say?"

"I believe my exact words were 'Fuck you, Peter.'" Booth's eyes widened in astonishment. _Good God, the guy'd had her tied up in a rotting basement hundreds of miles away, and she'd_ antagonized _him?_ Booth shook his head ruefully. It really shouldn't surprise him. That was his Bones. All fire and sass.

"Is that when he hurt you?"

"No… that was after I told him that I'd never want to be with him or let him touch me again, even if I didn't have you. He…he touched me inappropriately, but I was restrained too tightly to fight him. Until he tried to kiss me, anyway. I bit him, and that's what made him snap."

Booth tried to breathe evenly, but he couldn't stay in his seat. He very much wanted to punch something, and he wished for just a moment that Peter were alive to be that _something_.

"Booth…" She watched him pace irritably around the room. "I'll be okay. Why don't you tell me your side of it," she suggested, hoping to distract him a little. "You said you didn't find me. Who did then?"

He pursed his lips and looked back at her uncertainly, not knowing how she would react to his theories. Booth took a moment to organize the details in his mind before he answered her question.

"We got the security video from the garage, and Angela used her software to compare it with security tapes from your apartment building. One of the times he broke into your apartment was caught on camera, so she used her body recognition thingy-"

"Body Mass Recognition Program."

"Right. Anyway, while the rest of the squints were processing the scene, I was working to try to figure out where he might've taken you, and Angela was looking at old video to see if there was anything that might have helped… And about six hours after you were taken, I got a phone call."

"From Peter?" she asked, looking confused.

"No," he replied, coming back to sit next to her. "I have no proof, but...I'm pretty sure it was your dad."

"My _father_ called you? And said what?" Brennan took a cautious breath, needing to calm herself but remaining mindful of her fractured ribs.

"He gave me the address of the house where I could find you, told me to repeat it, which I did. Then he said to hurry… and hung up."

"My father was at the house?"

"I think so, yes. I'm pretty sure I recognized his voice. So Cullen got me a chopper and some backup, and we got here a couple hours later. We cleared the house and the property, but…Peter was already dead. Stabbed in the head," he finished, indicating a spot just behind his ear.

Booth held his breath for her reaction, watching her eyes widen in comprehension. Her features shifted to a familiar expression which told him that her brain was working faster than his own could even fathom.

"You think he was still following me? And what...just happened to see my abduction?"

"Something like that. When Angela went back over the older footage, she noticed that someone other than Peter was showing up in the feeds on more than one occasion. His face was always obscured, and the vehicle changed frequently, but…I'm almost certain it was your dad."

"You think Max killed Peter," she stated plainly.

"There's no proof, Bones. But…yeah. I'm sorry." Brennan shook her head dismissively at his apology and tried to make sense of her feelings.

On the one hand, she was horrified that Max may have murdered someone-for _her_. On the other hand, she knew that if he hadn't, she might very well be dead right now or at least still tied up in that basement. And if Max hadn't done it, then she had a pretty good idea who would have.

"If he hadn't killed Peter, you would have. Right?"

"Yes," he answered simply, not at all repentant. "Especially if I'd seen what he'd done to you." Brennan nodded, feeling a little more gratitude toward her father. The last thing she wanted was to be the reason Booth added another name to the wrong side of his cosmic balance sheet.

"I find that I'm unsure how to reconcile the fact that our job is to catch murderers, and yet my own _father_ might have killed someone because of me."

"Hey," he said quickly, "Absolutely nothing about this is your fault. If Max did kill Peter, then it was because of _Peter_. Not you. They're both responsible for their own actions, Bones." She looked back at him doubtfully but didn't argue.

"Are we going to investigate Peter's death?" she asked nervously.

"Not us, but I imagine someone local will. I really doubt they'll be able to find anything though. Max is smart. Smart enough not to leave evidence. The guy wouldn't have been able to evade the authorities for so many years without being damn good at covering his tracks."

"I agree with your assessment," she told him, nodding slightly. "Is it terrible that I feel a little thankful for that?"

"Of course not, Bones. He's your father, and he most likely saved your life yesterday. It's okay to be thankful for that, no matter how Max accomplished it." His eyes were reassuring, and she accepted the comfort he was offering.

Her pain was returning, and Brennan winced at a sharp twinge of her broken ribs. It didn't go unnoticed by her partner, who reached for the morphine button.

"No, I'm fine-"

 _Click_.

She frowned at him in typical form, and he smiled back at her. He may not have been able to prevent her abduction, but he was damn well going to make sure she healed from it properly.

"Sleep, Bones. Get better. I'll be here when you wake up." He leaned forward to kiss her softly, and by the time he'd pulled back, she was out.

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Brennan had been released from the hospital the following day, and she had timidly asked if they could stay at Booth's apartment rather than hers.

"I know it's silly… I know he's dead, but I think I'd just feel better in a place that he hadn't been able to get into." She'd spoken rapidly in a shaky voice that betrayed the attempted bravado in her expression.

"Hey, don't worry. I get it, and it's not silly at all. We'll go to my place, alright?" She'd nodded in relief and thanked him.

Now Booth stood with her in the shower, helping her wash carefully around her injuries. The colorful bruising on her ribcage and breasts had turned his eyes black with rage when he'd first seen them, but as he helped her wash and dry in slow, calculated movements, the emotion that overwhelmed him was remorse.

She spotted his expression and needed no translation.

"Stop blaming yourself, Booth. You said that none of this was my fault, and you were right. So you have to recognize that none of it was _your_ fault either. He would've still been my ex, whether you were in my life or not, he would still have been crazy enough to pull this off, and I'd still have been injured. But if it weren't for you, I might have ended up with much worse than this," she said, gesturing to her bruises.

Booth wanted to argue with her logic, but her words had actually made him feel much better. As he helped her get situated in bed and flicked off the lights, he felt the weight on his shoulders ease gradually.

"You may be right about that, Bones. But don't think I'm going to be any less overprotective of you from now on."

"I entertained no such notion," she assured him, scooting carefully toward him in bed so that they were lying with their faces mere inches apart.

"Good," he replied with a grin. "Glad that's settled then." She rolled her eyes but smiled back at him, and he was overwhelmed yet again with a rush of affection for her. Booth leaned forward on the pillow to close the distance between their mouths, and she kissed him back without hesitation. When he pulled back, she was wearing that same contented expression that he'd seen the day before in the hospital. _God, but he loved her._ So intensely, so completely.

"Bones," he began hesitantly, "There's something I've been thinking about for a while now… And I'm wondering if you would maybe consider...moving in together?" Brennan raised her brows in surprise, and he rushed to elaborate on his thoughts. "We can live here or at your place if you want, or we can find a place that's new and just ours. It doesn't matter either way to me; I just want to be with y-"

Her lips seized his, silencing him, and he couldn't help the smile that formed against her mouth. They kissed as deeply and passionately as her injuries would allow, and when they finally separated, they smiled at each other in exhilaration.

"Yes," she answered belatedly. "Of course." Booth's face lit up even more brightly, and he pressed another fervent kiss to her lips. She raised her hand to stroke his cheek tenderly and continued, "It would probably make the most sense to get our own place so that we won't have to move when we eventually have a baby."

"A baby, huh?" Booth's eyes twinkled at her even in the dim moonlight that filtered through the curtains.

"Yes. Though I…I still don't think I'll want to get married," she admitted cautiously. Though the happy expression on his face remained unchanged at her announcement, she felt the need to reassure him. "It has nothing to do with my commitment to you at all. I just don't think it's necessary to-"

This time it was he who silenced _her_ with a kiss, and when he pulled back, they were both grinning like fools.

"I've never asked you to change for me, Bones, and I'm not about to start now," he assured her. "I just want _you._ "

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The End

(till next time)

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 **The first sequel is underway, but it does take a while to rewatch each episode and continually pause it to type notes, haha. I'm also having surgery next month, so that might slow me down a bit, but be patient with me. I _will_ write it. When I started this, I had no plans to write more than just this story, but more ideas just keep popping into my head. As you can probably assume, both Booth and Brennan will have some things to work out. In addition to ramifications from the things I've put them through in my own universe, they'll also have Cam, Rebecca, Sully, Epps, the Gravedigger, and Max to deal with. And that's just S2. :)**

 **I'll start posting the next installment once I've got things laid out and am 100% sure on my direction. If you haven't already, make sure you follow me so that you'll be alerted when I start posting. You can also follow me on twitter cprice83 since I always post the new chapter links there.**

 **Oh, and if you've just finished reading this like 3 years from now or something, take a second to let me know if you liked it. I'll never tire of feedback!**

 **Take care and see you soon!**


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